A component-based groupware development methodology

Software development in general and groupware applications in particular can greatly benefit from the reusability and interoperability aspects associated with software components. Component-based software development enables the construction of software artefacts by assembling prefabricated, configurable and independently evolving buildings blocks, called software components. This paper presents a methodology for the development of groupware applications using a set of composable software components. This methodology consists of splitting the software development process according to four abstraction levels, viz., enterprise, system, component and object, and three different views, viz., structural, behavioural and interactional. The use of different abstraction levels and views allows a better control of the development process. We illustrate this methodology using a chat application as a case study.