The definition of the configurable aspects of an implementation in terms of the services it exposes, the services it references, and properties that can be used to configure it.
A service represents an addressable interface provided by the implementation. Such a service may be the target of a wire from another component.
A reference represents a requirement that an implementation has on a service provided by another component or by a resource outside the SCA system. Such a reference may be the source of a wire to another component.
A property allows the behaviour of the implementation to be configured through externally set values.
A component type may also declare that it wishes to be initialized upon activation of the scope that contains it and may specify an order relative to other eagerly initializing components. For example, an implementation that pre-loads some form of cache could declare that it should be eagerly initialized at the start of the scope so that the cache load occured on startup rather than first use.
@version $Rev: 430937 $ $Date: 2006-08-11 18:17:56 -0700 (Fri, 11 Aug 2006) $