Composability
Encyclopedia
Composability is a system design principle that deals with the inter-relationships of components. A highly composable system provides recombinant components that can be selected and assembled in various combinations to satisfy specific user requirements. In information systems, the essential features that make a component composable are that it be:
  • self-contained (modular
    Modular programming
    Modular programming is a software design technique that increases the extent to which software is composed of separate, interchangeable components called modules by breaking down program functions into modules, each of which accomplishes one function and contains everything necessary to accomplish...

    ): it can be deployed independently - note that it may cooperate with other components, but dependent components are replaceable
  • stateless
    Stateless server
    In computing, a stateless protocol is a communications protocol that treats each request as an independent transaction that is unrelated to any previous request so that the communication consists of independent pairs of requests and responses...

    : it treats each request as an independent transaction, unrelated to any previous request. Stateless is just one technique; managed state and transactional systems can also be composable, but with greater difficulty.


Composability (the property of a component being able to be composed) should not be confused with compositionality
Principle of compositionality
In mathematics, semantics, and philosophy of language, the Principle of Compositionality is the principle that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules used to combine them. This principle is also called Frege's Principle,...

 (the property of the system that the whole can be understood by understanding the parts and how they are combined).

In Simulation
Simulation
Simulation is the imitation of some real thing available, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system....

 Theory, current literature distinguishes between Composability of Models and Interoperability of Simulation. Modeling is understood is the purposeful abstraction of reality, resulting in the formal specification of a conceptualization and underlying assumptions and constraints. M&S is in particular interested in models that are used to support the implementation of an executable version on a computer. The execution of a model over time is understood as the simulation. While modeling targets the conceptualization, simulation challenges mainly focus on implementation, in other words, modeling resides on the abstraction level, whereas simulation resides on the implementation level. Following the ideas derived from the Levels of Conceptual Interoperability Model (LCIM), Composability addresses the model challenges on higher levels, Interoperability deals with simulation implementation issues, and Integratability with network questions.

Examples

  • Composable operations
  • Minimal structured control flow
  • Universal composability
    Universal composability
    The framework of Universal Composability is a general-purpose model for the analysis of cryptographic protocols. It guarantees very strong security properties. Protocols remain secure even if arbitrarily composed with other instances of the same or other protocols. Security is defined in the...


Related concepts

  • Function composition
    Function composition (computer science)
    In computer science, function composition is an act or mechanism to combine simple functions to build more complicated ones...

  • Object composition
    Object composition
    In computer science, object composition is a way to combine simple objects or data types into more complex ones...

  • Conceptual interoperability
    Conceptual interoperability
    Conceptual interoperability is a concept in simulation theory.From the early ideas of Harkrider and Lunceford, simulation composability has been studied in more detail...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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