Software IC revised: A new approach of component-based software design with software slots

By investigating the failure of Software IC in object-oriented technology and studying the characteristics of component-based or COTS-based software technologies, this paper revises Software IC and develops a software-slot-oriented strategy for the design of component-based software systems. This new strategy introduces requirements directly into the design of component-based systems, and allows architects to focus on system frameworks without too much concern about components. This work provides a mechanism to deal with the increasingly complex interface logics of COTS systems, and suggests a possible guidance for component standardization. Effectiveness and availability of the proposed approach are illustrated with a case study that applies the software-slot-oriented design on a practical component-based software system.