Generic Software Components

We claim that to be effectively reusable, software components must be generic. Otherwise:

• Each decision that is hard-coded into a component becomes a requirement on the use of that component.

• There will be a combinatoric number of components based on combinations of decisions.

• It will be hard to find the right component among the many available.

• Learning the requirements of a component becomes a burden on the user.

• Conforming to the requirements reduces the benefit of reuse.

• Changes will require changes of components.

Instead, there should be only one generic version of each component, which should serve for all uses in all languages.

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