Strategies for seeking reusable components in Smalltalk

Although object oriented languages can help make software more reusable, class libraries can be difficult to use unless the programmer knows the library well. In particular, it can be hard to find and understand components that a programmer may want to reuse. The article focuses on novice programmers solving programming tasks which require the reuse of components. We take an in-depth look at how the programmers find the necessary components, and identify strategies that they use to achieve it. We also comment on the type of tool that is necessary from the viewpoint of the strategies.

[1]  Sallie M. Henry,et al.  An empirical study of the object-oriented paradigm and software reuse , 1991, OOPSLA '91.

[2]  John R. Anderson Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications , 1980 .

[3]  R. Prieto-Diaz,et al.  Classification of reusable modules , 1989 .

[4]  Naomi Miyake,et al.  Constructive Interaction and the Iterative Process of Understanding , 1986, Cogn. Sci..

[5]  Mary Beth Rosson,et al.  The reuse of uses in Smalltalk programming , 1996, TCHI.

[6]  T. Biggerstaff,et al.  Reusability Framework, Assessment, and Directions , 1987, IEEE Software.

[7]  Gerti Kappel,et al.  Learning the semantic similarity of reusable software components , 1994, Proceedings of 1994 3rd International Conference on Software Reuse.

[8]  Yibing Li,et al.  Finding reusable components in Smalltalk-80 , 1993 .

[9]  T. Biggerstaff,et al.  Reusability Framework, Assessment, and Directions , 1987, IEEE Software.

[10]  Brian Henderson-Sellers,et al.  Class Hierarchies: Consistency Between Libraries , 1997, Aust. Comput. J..

[11]  Gerhard Fischer,et al.  Beyond Object-Oriented Technology: Where Current Approaches Fall Short , 1995, Hum. Comput. Interact..

[12]  Krzysztof Czarnecki,et al.  ClassExpert: a knowledge-based assistant to support reuse by specialization and modification in Smalltalk , 1996, Proceedings of Fourth IEEE International Conference on Software Reuse.

[13]  Simon Charles Roger Lewis,et al.  The Art and Science of SmallTalk , 1995 .

[14]  Thomas G. Moher,et al.  Some strategies of reuse in an object-oriented programming environment , 1989, CHI '89.

[15]  Bernard Horan,et al.  Smalltalk: an introduction to application development using VisualWorks , 1995 .

[16]  Susan T. Dumais,et al.  The vocabulary problem in human-system communication , 1987, CACM.

[17]  B. Curtis,et al.  Cognitive issues in reusing software artifacts , 1989 .