Enabling Composition Across Component Models

Component-based software engineering promotes a style of application construction based on composing pre-built and pre-validated components. Different component models have been proposed and standardized for creating such composable components. Each component model is independent of the others, however, and does not support composition with the other models. We present the Vienna Component Framework (VCF) whose goal is to support the interoperability and composability of components from different component models. The VCF presents a unified component model—implemented by a façade component—to the application programmer. The model supports common component features, namely, methods, properties, and events. To support a component model within the VCF, a plugin component is needed that contains the meta-information about the component model. The meta-information is used by the façade component to provide access to components. The programmer may write new components by composing components from different component models, accessed