This was the book that defined components https://smile.amazon.com/Component-Software-Beyond-Object-Oriented-Programming/dp/0201178885/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=softw

This was the book that defined components https://smile.amazon.com/Component-Software-Beyond-Object-Oriented-Programming/dp/0201178885/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=software+components&qid=1576875186&sr=8-1 https://smile.amazon.com/Component-Software-Beyond-Object-Or... At the time components were going to be the next level above objects - they were the black box that contained a lot of objects and provided a nice programmer interface. Unfortunately the ideas seem to have disappeared, Delphi is an even better example of a component model than VB was imho.