Reusability in Programming: A Survey of the State of the Art

As programming passes the 30 year mark as a professional occupation, an increasingly large number of programs are in application areas that have been automated for many years. This fact is changing the technology base of commercial programming, and is opening up new markets for standard functions, reusable common systems, modules, and the tools and support needed to facilitate searching out and incorporating existing code segments. This report addresses the 1984 state of the art in the domains of reusable data, reusable architectures, reusable design, common systems, reusable programs, and reusable modules or subroutines. If current trends toward reusability continue, the amount of reused logic and reused code in commercial programming systems may approach 50 percent by 1990. However, major efforts will be needed in the areas of reusable data, reusable architectures, and reusable design before reusable code becomes a sound basic technology.