Technical criteria for the specification and evaluation of object-oriented libraries

One of the often cited goals of the object-oriented approach to software development is to increase the level of reuse in the development process. One of the primary techniques for the reuse of code is the development of libraries. The paper presents a set of attributes that an object-oriented library of reusable components should possess. The paper also provides design criteria that result in libraries with the desired attributes. The design criteria are illustrated with examples and counter-examples from currently available libraries