Framelets and Implementation Cases

Abstract

Software methodologies are essentially means to master the complexity of the software development process. The complexity of framework development has at least two distinct aspects. Quantitatively, complexity stems from the sheer size of typical frameworks that may encompass hundreds of constructs – classes, design patterns, interfaces, hot-spots, etc – embedded in an often tangled web of interconnections and semantic relationships. Qualitatively, it arises from their high level of abstraction, itself a consequence of their attempt to model whole application domains. This chapter addresses both aspects of framework complexity. It introduces the framelet concept, that was developed specifically to address the quantitative complexity of framework development, and the implementation case concept that instead handles the qualitative side of framework complexity. Framelets are treated first.