Development of a component architecture within HOOPLA

Abstract

HOOPLA is a research project conducted by the Department of Computer Science at the University of Malta. Its aim is to develop a concurrent and asynchronous programming technology based upon Milner's Action Calculi. The primary goal of this project is to include within HOOPLA support for the creation of software components. Component-based development is emerging as an important stage in the evolution of software development, promising to shorten development cycles, reduce the skill requirements, and cut costs associated with custom development. After surveying the leading component models and architectures, the most important features that a component architecture should have are identified. Based on these features, a component architecture is proposed conforming to the asynchronous reactive paradigm manifest in HOOPLA. A visual programming tool which was developed to support HOOPLA component creation and manipulation is described.