Reuse in software engineering: an object-oriented perspective

The role of reuse within software engineering is examined. The benefits of reuse are stated, inhibitors to successful reuse are pointed out, and technical issues for achieving reuse are examined. Specific attention is paid to how object-oriented software engineering enhances or reduces the potential for reuse as compared with traditional (i.e. not based on objects or object-oriented concepts) software engineering. Three major activities for supporting reuse are described. The first is the intentional development of reusable artifacts, the second is the representation and classification of artifacts into repositories, and the last is the utilization of the artifacts from repositories. The object-oriented model is found to be significantly similar to the traditional model in many aspects. However, differences are found insofar as object-oriented design supports the design techniques of abstraction and factorization, which utilize object inheritance to yield reusable objects.<>