Connection: an inter-component communication paradigm for configurable distributed systems

Large distributed software systems are complex and have high costs for development, maintenance, and evolution. Some of the complexity of large software systems arises from the large number of tightly coupled components they contain. A major cause of this tight coupling is the merging of binding information with a component´s logical behavior. A new paradigm for structuring evolving software systems, Connection, which decouples software components by separating their binding from their behavior using a flexible port and connection mechanism is proposed. Using the paradigm, software systems can be more modular, hierarchical, comprehensible, reusable, and flexible in incorporating modifications and extensions to the system. This paper presents the Connection paradigm and describes some of its applications