Abstract

Software reuse has the potential to increase productivity and reduce development costs. Several research and experience reports show that practicing and achieving high levels of software reuse in the presence of repository and object-oriented computer-aided software engineering (CASE) development methods pose technical and managerial challenges. This thesis presents reuse research that seeks to integrate and enhance software development activity in TROMLAB framework, an environment being constructed at Concordia, University for a rigorous development of real-time reactive systems. We propose a browser-based reuse framework for automatic search and retrieval of TROMLAB components. VISTA is a visual medium embedding the browser for practicing software reuse in TROMLAB applications. The browser provides facilities to navigate the repositories of reusable components, inspect components and their dependencies, and enable the retrieval and modifications of components for reuse. The browser also works in conjunction with the graphical user interface of TROMLAB, thus providing an environment for active reuse.