Portability and reusability: common issues and differences

Portability is clearly a form of reusability, but the problem of enhancing and supporting portability raises problems which are not often addressed by reuse research. Portability is typically concerned with the reuse of complete applications on new platforms, while reuse research has typically concentrated on building and maintaining collections of reusable components or similar artifacts, and reusing them effectively in new applications. This paper reviews and compares current issues in reuse research and portability research. Although the dominant problems for the two research domains are distinct, the goal is to identify some common areas where both domains may benefit from continuing research. Several common areas are identified. These include classification, specification and measurement, validation and verification, software process issues, and management issues. The problem of integrating portability into the software development process is briefly considered. Benefits may be anticipated from integration of both portability and reuse. It appears, however, that integration of portability may be more easily accomplished, yet harder to justify to management.