Effective component-based solutions to problems: reusing components and designs

Computers are useful problem-solving tools, and they are most effective when they are programmed to address a particular problem. Programming is however an activity that is restricted to a very small group of specialists, usually with years of training. Within this specialism, component reuse is regarded as an important technique, but one that is difficult to achieve in practice. The existing development community has already invested considerable time and money in learning software development skills, and is unlikely to invest further in learning a significantly different skill. It seems reasonable therefore that effective techniques for component reuse will need to be based on existing skills, and must keep the additional workload of component reuse as small as possible. The work described in this thesis is an investigation of techniques which might meet this requirement and which are based on an understanding of the holistic human-computer problem solving system. Here, both the requirements of the computer as an information processing system, and the needs of the human problem solver are accounted for and enabled to work together effectively. [Continues.]