From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008) [foldoc]:
component architecture
<programming> A notion in object-oriented programming where
"components" of a program are completely generic. Instead of
having a specialised set of methods and fields they have
generic methods through which the component can advertise the
functionality it supports to the system into which it is
loaded. This enables completely dynamic loading of
objects. JavaBeans is an example of a component
architecture.
See also design pattern.
(1997-11-20)