Re: Booch Components

[dog.ee.lbl.gov!news!vela!wsu-cs!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!agate!linus!linus.mit re.org!texas!jclander@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Julian C. Lander)]

The Boch Components are distributed in source form (at least the ones
I worked with were).  I've used them before, and they're a great time-
saver.  

The way to think about whether they're worth it for you are to 
figure out how many of the packages described in Booch's book
(Software Components in Ada, or something like that, I don't have
a copy here) you would use.  The distributed components are
just the code in the book, in all varieties (there's a list in
an appendix.)  You could code them up yourself if you needed to. 
So is it cheaper to code or buy?

The Booch components are also pretty much bug-free (I don't 
remember problems, but I might have forgotten or missed some.)

Another good thing about them is that you find yourself 
choosing the components that best suit the problem, not
just trying to re-use the ones you already wrote.  (This
assumes, of course, that there are Booch components that
match your problem.)
 
Julian C. Lander
jclander@mitre.org
(Standard disclaimer goes here.)