MI - AN OBJECT-ORIENTED ENVIRONMENT FOR INTEGRATION OF SCIENTIFIC APPLICATIONS

Scientific and engineering software is often produced by integration o f existing software components of the size of a whole program. However , on the average, scientific software was not developed for reusabilit y and is quite distant from the user model of the application problem; integration and retrofitting is as such a costly process. An architec ture, methodology and several C++ class libraries for supporting integ ration are introduced. The architecture separates a software component layer, and an integration layer. The latter in based on the concept o f software model, that is an abstraction of components and a represent ation of the system differing from its actual physical structure. The methodology is based on matching needs with existing models. The C++ c lass libraries are explained in some detail. The application to two ma jor systems is analysed and the ideas behind seven other systems are b riefly outlined. Some lessons learned are summarised in the conclusion s.