IDI Course MG-08
Establishing and Administering an Effective
Central Reusable Component Library
Before an organization can exploit the huge
benefits of component re-use, it must establish an infrastructure
that includes:
- a repository for contributions
- a librarian to administer the repository
- well-documented procedures for contributing components and
for assuring their quality
- well-documented procedures for locating and obtaining components
- programming standards and
quality assurance practices to encourage heavy reuse.
In addition an organization will usually prime the library
with 2 dozen or so of the most generally useful components.
Although each of these infrastructure aspects is simple enough,
a smoothly-functioning combination requires careful planning and
avoidance of certain common pitfalls. Dozens of choices must be
made and issues faced, such as:
- How to classify and index the items.
- How to orient the component librarian, and how to integrate a part-time
librarian role with other support activities in a software
development organization.
- Integrating selected vendor libraries with in-house developed
components.
- Impacts on programmer-training and professional development
programs.
- Whether to allocate development costs across multiple projects,
and if so, how.
- Special issues for decentralized (organizationally and/or
geographically) organizations.
This single-session seminar examines those and other issues from
a management perspective, and prepares the participant for
implementing reuse in his or her organization.
Length:
1 half-day session.
Designed for
- Technical managers or
methodology administrators
- Senior programmers
- Programming instructors
Prerequisites:
A general understanding of highly modular program structure and/or
object-oriented design, or an appreciation of the value of
component reuse.
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Last modified September 13, 2000