Title: On building effective software system using component-based software technology

Speaker: Richard Lai, Associate Professor, La Trobe University, Australia

Time: 9:30am, Wednesday,Aug. 31,  2011

Venue: Lecture Room, 3rd Floor, Building No. 5, State Key Laboratory of Computer Science, Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Abstract:

The world-wide software industry has been plagued by two well-known problems: project delay and cost overrun. To help address them, the emerging software development methodology Component-Based Software Development (CBSD) - has become increasingly popular. CBSD has the benefits of reduction in software development cost and time to market for software products. A Component-Based System (CBS) is integration centric with a focus on assembling individual components to build a software system. However, CBSD does have other challenges and difficulties that the conventional software development method does not have. One of them is that building an effective CBS heavily depends on the selection of the right components, which are usually designed for general purposes. In addition, component source code information is usually not available and each component introduces added properties such as constraints associated with its use and interactions with other components, thus making it hard to know which ones are the best choices. This seminar presents a method for selecting the most suitable components from a component repository so that an effective software system would be developed.

Speaker's brief Bio:

Richard Lai holds a BE(Hons) and a MEngSc from the University of New South Wales, and a PhD from La Trobe University, Australia. He is currently an academic staff of the Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering at La Trobe University. Prior to joining La Trobe in 1989, he worked in the computer and communications industry for about 12 years. He has co-authored a book and about 60 journal papers. Dr Lai was ranked as the number one scholar in Systems and Software Engineering consecutively for four years (1999-2002) and within the top 15 for the period from 1997 to 2007 according to an annual survey that appears in the Journal of Systems and Software, North-Holland (USA). He has given keynote speeches at a few international conferences and has served as a member of the editorial board of a few journals like the Journal of Systems and Software and Computer Communications. His research interests include component-based software engineering, software process, requirements engineering, software testing, and software measurement. He was a recipient of a 2007 Faculty Dean's commendation for excellence in teaching for his high standard of PhD supervision practices.