Opportunistic software composition: benefits and requirements

Charles Triboulot (1, 2) , Sylvie Trouilhet (1, 3) , Jean-Paul Arcangeli (1, 3) , Fabrice Robert (2)

1 IRIT-SMAC - Systèmes Multi-Agents Coopératifs
2 Sogeti (FRANCE)
3 UT3 - Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier

Traditional software development relies on building and assembling pieces of software in order to satisfy explicit requirements. Component-based software engineering simplifies composition and reuse, but software adaptation to changing environments remains a challenge. Opportunistic composition is a new approach for building software in open and dynamic contexts. It is based on the ability to compose software components in a bottom-up manner, merely because they are available at a point and not because the construction of a specific software has been demanded. In this way, software emerges from the environment. This paper analyzes the advantages of such an approach in terms of flexibility and reuse, along with the requirements that an infrastructure supporting opportunistic composition should satisfy: it should be decentralized, autonomic, and dynamically adaptive. The state of the art of automatic software composition shows that few solutions are actually bottom-up, and that none of them fully satisfy the requirements of opportunistic composition.

Mots clés: Opportunism; software component; automatic composition; bottom-up; ambient systems; automatic bottom-up composition

Domaines: Génie logiciel [cs.SE]

Charles Triboulot, Sylvie Trouilhet, Jean-Paul Arcangeli, Fabrice Robert. Opportunistic software composition: benefits and requirements. [Research Report] IRIT : Institut en recherche Informatique de Toulouse. 2015, pp.1-6. ⟨hal-03190225⟩