Book excerpt: This state-of-the-art book aims to address problems and solutions in implementing complex and high quality systems past the year 2000. In particular, it focuses on the development of languages, methods and tools and their further evaluation. Among the issues discussed are the following: evolution of software systems; specific application domains; supporting portability and reusability of software components; the development of networking software; and software architectures for various application domains. This book comprises the proceedings of the International Conference on Systems Implementation 2000: Languages, Methods and Tools, sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and was held in Germany, in February 1998. It will be particularly relevant to researchers in the field of software engineering and to software developers working in larger companies.