Component based software development is the latest buzzword in the quest for the holy grail of software reuse. Unlike object-oriented software development that accomplishes reuse through the inheritance of implementation code, component software development focuses on standardizing the interfaces between independently developed units of software. This approach holds the promise for application development by third-party assembly of prebuilt, standardized components, analogous to hardware assembly using off-the-shelf integrated circuit (IC) building blocks.
This paper examines component software in the context of the development of meteorological data analysis and visualization applications using Java. Terminology and concepts of component technology are reviewed and an update on their use in a prototype visualization application is presented. The strengths and limitations of component software development are examined, and future plans for use of the technology at the Unidata Program Center (UPC) are presented