function calls and declarations, making development and maintenance tasks almost as painful as developing the code yourself. Some vendor technical support staffs are overwhelmed by calls and emails so that it's difficult to reach them for help. Other vendors have vanished entirely after releasing a first version, and more than a few have simply gone bankrupt. Technical support, in these cases, is an impossibility.
2. What are better ways of incorporating controls that are still useful?
By creating a component committee
By formulating an evaluation and selection criteria
By pricing components versus in-house component development
3. Describe one or more benefits of having a separate committee evaluate third-party controls for use in an enterprise?
A separate committee (either in-house or an independent, external organization) composed of one or more developers and testing experts can dedicate exclusive time to evaluating third-party controls. The committee can also test the documentation for accuracy. It can evaluate the vendor's response to technical support and general questions about the control. Finally, the committee can test the control by creating test applications that incorporate the controls. To be even more thorough, the committee can have the quality assurance and testing team test the test application to make sure the component can handle a full production environment. A thorough committee might even investigate the financial soundness and commercial health of the third-party vendor when it has decided on a control but is unsure whether the company might be around long. If this latter approach is taken, the committee would look at whether the vendor is constantly in debt, no matter how large or small.
4. What questions should you ask in evaluating third-party controls?
How long has the vendor been in business? How easy is it to use the control? How much does the control cost relative to developing the code yourself? Can you reuse this control to obtain a fair return on investment? Is the control well documented? How responsive is technical support? Will the vendor be around to provide technical support?
5. For what purposes must organizations pay up-front costs in seeking return on investment through component reusability?
To assess the applications with which to achieve reuse
To properly define the application's architecture so that the component has a role to play within it
