A soft computing based approach to estimate reusability of software components

Component-based development (CBD) is the process of assembling existing software components in an application such that they satisfy a predefined functionality. Reduced development time, effort and cost are few merits of CBD. As components are black-box, therefore the use of conventional metrics in CBD is difficult, because these metrics needs analysis of source codes. To assess the reuse of component, it is important to estimate reusability of these components. Present paper discusses reusability in relation to CBD and proposes a reusability metrics for black box components. It identifies the factors affecting reusability of the components and establishes relationship in between these factors and reusability. Fuzzy logic based approach is used to estimate reusability and results found on real time applications are quite satisfactory. The proposed approach can be used by the application developers to select highly reusable components in the systems which will eventually help in maintaining the system in a better way.