Research topics in software composition

Traditional software development approaches do not cope well with the evolving requirements of open systems. We argue that such systems are best viewed as flexible compositions of "software components" designed to work together as part of a component framework that formalizes a class of applications with a common software architecture. To enable such a view of software systems, we need appropriate support from programming language technology, software tools, and methods. We will briefly review the current state of object-oriented technology, insofar as it supports componentoriented development, and propose a research agenda of topics for further investigation.