what do you think about this? is any work going on in this area?

The various components of COTS software are designed as services,
strung together with an independent IDE and sold as a package to the
customer.
The (higher end) customer has the option to opt for only a specific
service from a provider and string together various independent service
providers to form his own version of the COTS software.
service-oriented design in development of COTS software and the future
role of service oriented architecture for the production of COTS
software.

Responding to Plasmafire...

> what do you think about this? is any work going on in this area?
> 
> The various components of COTS software are designed as services,
> strung together with an independent IDE and sold as a package to the
> customer.
> The (higher end) customer has the option to opt for only a specific
> service from a provider and string together various independent service
> providers to form his own version of the COTS software.
> service-oriented design in development of COTS software and the future
> role of service oriented architecture for the production of COTS
> software.

Isn't this just another way of describing Plug & Play?  It seems to me 
that interoperability infrastructures from DCOM to Eclipse are all 
focused on the notion of individual applications being plug & play services.

Similarly, large scale modularization encapsulated by APIs is just a 
mechanism for molding software components into services.  Modern systems 
engineering techniques for abstracting interfaces around generic subject 
matters are very much geared to the client/service view of software 
modules.  That allows exactly the sort of high level client abstraction 
of services that you describe.


*************
There is nothing wrong with me that could
not be cured by a capful of Drano.

H. S. Lahman
hsl@pathfindermda.com
Pathfinder Solutions  -- Put MDA to Work
http://www.pathfindermda.com
blog: http://pathfinderpeople.blogs.com/hslahman
(888)OOA-PATH

i believe that DCOM to Eclipse are all very tightly coupled when you
consider what i say. A service directory, find bind & execute level
abstraction is not provided.. an evolution of these may lead to what i
am saying...
My real qn is.. is this field alive, if yes.. what is cutting edge in
this?

Responding to Plasmafire...

> i believe that DCOM to Eclipse are all very tightly coupled when you
> consider what i say. A service directory, find bind & execute level
> abstraction is not provided.. an evolution of these may lead to what i
> am saying...

But distributed architectures like CORBA and Eclipse already provide 
find, bind, & execute services.

> My real qn is.. is this field alive, if yes.. what is cutting edge in
> this?

I think the field is quite alive.  However, I think one has to 
distinguish between the services and the "backplane" infrastructures 
that support them in a plug & play manner.  The service does not provide 
interoperability and reuse per se; it simply has to be compatible with 
the relevant interoperability standards.  It is the infrastructure that 
provides actual plug & play substitution.

As far as what is cutting edge I think that lies in the evolving 
standards and infrastructures.  For example, OMG's MDA initiative is 
designed to provide plug & play tool capability in software development 
environments.  For that to work the service tools need to be Good 
Citizens and conform to the standard.  But when they are, then the 
development infrastructure allows the developer to substitute the tools 
to form a unique development environment.


*************
There is nothing wrong with me that could
not be cured by a capful of Drano.

H. S. Lahman
hsl@pathfindermda.com
Pathfinder Solutions  -- Put MDA to Work
http://www.pathfindermda.com
blog: http://pathfinderpeople.blogs.com/hslahman
(888)OOA-PATH