Using components for rapid distributed software development

Software development has not reached the maturity of other engineering disciplines; it is still challenging to produce software that works reliably, is easy to use and maintain, and arrives within budget and on time. In addition, relatively small software systems for highly specific applications are in increasing demand. This need requires a significantly different approach to software development from that used by their large, monolithic, general-purpose software counterparts such as Microsoft Word. The paper discusses the use of components for rapid distributed software development. It reports on the the experience of a large testbed called Educational Software Components of Tomorrow (www.escot.org), supported by the US National Science Foundation.