ABSTRACT
A key to success with reuse has been the recognition of the need to understand the application area within which the components will be (re)used, this activity being referred to as Domain Analysis – this has also been seen as important in reverse engineering. Domain Analysis entered software reuse through the Draco project. Thus domain analysis is like requirements analysis, only broader, covering a number of related systems. To be able to use domain knowledge effectively, must be able to represent the results of the domain analysis so that it can be shared. If looked at methods used for knowledge elicitation, such as Motta et al., very similar stages in the process can be found, with iterations to refine the domain models. Arango likens domain analysis to the creation of a scientific theory, and the pursuit of a domain analysis method as equivalent to the attempt to formalise scientific method, and hence doomed to failure.
