If you are a component based programming enthusiast such as a user of Spring, Pico etc, you probably use the term IOC or Inversion of Control to define the basic building blocks that make up this approach.

If not, the high level idea is that Objects are not enough, because they allow for too much wide open interdependency. Component Oriented programming is more like your old component based stereo, everything is separate black boxes. IOC is the wires that connect them all together. Maybe that's a crappy analogy but it's a start.

As a founding contributor of Keel Framework (see Keel Framework) I have been following this programming fad actively since 2000, well before it became a rage in recent years. We use Apache's Avalon as our IOC container, and I am still not brilliant in it's use, but I have used it for enough years to at least be able to get the job done.