On Thu, 9 Sep 2010, Blaise Gassend wrote:

>> - The previous remarks are all about the separation of the "4Cs" (which is
>>   my pet software design guideline): to try to separate the Computation, the
>>   Communication, the Configuration and the Coordination that take place in
>>   components. (BTW, this is something that ROS is rather bad at... I can
>>   show you dozens of "horror stories" in (core) ROS packages where all 4Cs
>>   are coupled in horrible ways.)
>
> Is there a particular reference you would recommend for becoming more
> familiar with this design guideline?
>

The original reference is

@InCollection{      RadestockEisenbach1996,
   author          = {Radestock, Matthias and Eisenbach, Susan},
   title           = {Coordination in evolving systems},
   booktitle       = {Trends in Distributed Systems.\ {CORBA} and Beyond},
   publisher       = {Springer-Verlag},
   pages           = {162--176},
   year            = {1996}
}

A very seldom cited article, very "hidden", but worth looking for. I can
send you an electronic copy, off-line.

These authors have also a more recent article, a bit more focused on
middleware:

@Article{            RadestockEisenbach2003,
   author          = {Radestock, Matthias and Eisenbach, Susan},
   title           = {Coordinating components in middleware systems},
   journal         = {Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience},
   volume          = {15},
   number          = {13},
   pages           = {1205--1231},
   year            = {2003}
}

I am preparing an article on the topic, but I do not find enough time to
finish it. You can expect more of these guidelines coming out of the BRICS
project ("Best Practices in Robotics") in the coming year.

Herman