Component-based development is very popular and is the subject of much current research. This book is a collection of articles focusing on frameworks and architectures, object-based specification and verification, formal methods and semantics, reactive and distributed systems. The style is academic, in the sense that these are articles following a well-defined style and pattern abstract, definitions, main argument, - possibly based on a case study - acknowledgements and bibliography.

The articles themselves are well written and clear although a number of the articles use mathematical/logical arguments, which some readers may find difficult to follow. The extensive bibliographies quoted allow the dedicated reader to pursue the subject matter further and are almost obligatory in this type of work. The editors point out that the material has not been previously published and most articles were solicited from experts in the field with peer review to ensure quality.

For those interested in an academic collection of articles that discuss the state of the art ideas around component-based systems there is some good material. For example the discussion of key concepts in architecture, connection, interface and plug and socket and ADLs or architecture definition languages such as ACME. Some articles are heavier going and probably only of interest to researchers; such as the discussion of a formal language for composition or a semantic foundation for specification matching. Most application developers will probably find very little to interest them in this book as there is very little code and no discussion of typical business applications or technologies.