The evolution of component based software engineering from the traditional approach to current practices

Reusability is a phenomenon that has been long known. Initially in a low scale, at the levels of functions in the programs, and later in it's alter avatar, in form of Component Based Software Engineering (CBSE). Reusability was the key factor around which CBSE revolved. But later, it was observed that even a more stringent factor was involved that marked CBSE as a pioneer in the Software Development Methodologies-Evolution of Requirements. Evolution of requirements is a natural phenomenon, in the life cycles of the Software Systems in the modern era. As requirements evolve, new features are added and existing features are modified or deleted. To conform to the requirement evolution, the current working version of the implementation also has to change in most cases, to support the changed needs. Where other methodologies felt short to embrace, CBSE seems to harness this fact. In this paper, I have compared the various approaches and methodologies from the traditional times. I then survey some of the popular approaches to CBSE, and provided a comparative discussion among those approaches considering the challenges faced by component based development.