Components
The term component is widely used in discussions about software, although there is no consensus about exactly what the term means. The basic concept of component is a black box piece of software that can be reused. By this loose definition, a DLL would be a component. Usually, somewhat more is meant, such as some kind of “object orientation.” Examples of such object-oriented components are COM objects, JavaBeans, and CORBA objects.
It would be useful to compare objects from an object-oriented programming language with COM components. An object encapsulates data and behavior, and it facilitates reuse—at the source code level. If you are working entirely in one programming language, such as C++ or Java, you can gain great benefit by ...
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