Computer-assisted navigation is achieved with component-oriented programming and instructions that provide a distributed component programming navigation system. The computer-assisted navigation is achieved with a computing device having program memory. Operationally, the component-oriented application loaded in the memory provides a distributed navigation system comprising a User Interface component, a Service Manager component, a User Positioning category of components that provides a user position based on navigation sensor data, and a Mapping category of components that accesses a map database and places the user position on a road segment of the map database. The components within the component-oriented application are managed by the service manager component to perform distributed navigation services.