A Quality Model for Actionable Analytics in Rapid Software Development

Background: Accessing relevant data on the product, process, and usage perspectives of software as well as integrating and analyzing such data is crucial for getting reliable and timely actionable insights aimed at continuously managing software quality in Rapid Software Development (RSD). In this context, several software analytics tools have been developed in recent years. However, there is a lack of explainable software analytics that software practitioners trust. Aims: We aimed at creating a quality model (called Q-Rapids quality model) for actionable analytics in RSD, implementing it, and evaluating its understandability and relevance. Method: We performed workshops at four companies in order to determine relevant metrics as well as product and process factors. We also elicited how these metrics and factors are used and interpreted by practitioners when making decisions in RSD. We specified the Q-Rapids quality model by comparing and integrating the results of the four workshops. Then we implemented the Q-Rapids tool to support the usage of the Q-Rapids quality model as well as the gathering, integration, and analysis of the required data. Afterwards we installed the Q-Rapids tool in the four companies and performed semi-structured interviews with eight product owners to evaluate the understandability and relevance of the Q-Rapids quality model. Results: The participants of the evaluation perceived the metrics as well as the product and process factors of the Q-Rapids quality model as understandable. Also, they considered the Q-Rapids quality model relevant for identifying product and process deficiencies (e.g., blocking code situations). Conclusions: By means of heterogeneous data sources, the Q-Rapids quality model enables detecting problems that take more time to find manually and adds transparency among the perspectives of system, process, and usage.Comment: This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of a paper to be published by IEEE in the 44th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA) 2018. The final authenticated version will be available onlin

An Interactive Approach of Ontology-based Requirement Elicitation for Software Customization

Software product lines allow reusing a collection of related software engineering assets to develop custom-made high quality software with reduced time and cost. In this thesis, an interactive approach of requirement elicitation for software customization is presented. It first adopts an ontology-based requirement model to represent the commonalities and variabilities among a group of related requirement artefacts. The development of a dialogue system further enables users to interactively customize software products by means of text-based dialogue. While the ontology model directs the dialogue system to perform requirement elicitation, its instantiation is accomplished with the support of decomposition-based requirement refinement in Service-Oriented Architecture. Besides the design details, a case study is presented to demonstrate how customizing an online book shopping system could be achieved with interactive requirement elicitation. Finally, the reliability and efficiency of the proposed method are evaluated with experimental comparison

Addressing Fine-Grained Variability in User-Centered Software Product Lines: A Case Study on Dashboards

Software product lines provide a theoretical framework to generate and customize products by studying the target domain and by capturing the commonalities among the potential products of the family. This domain knowledge is subsequently used to implement a series of configurable core assets that will be systematically reused to obtain products with different features to match particular user requirements. Some kind of interactive systems, like dashboards, require special attention as their features are very fine-grained. Having the capacity of configuring a dashboard product to match particular user requirements can improve the utility of these products by providing the support to users to reach useful insights, in addition to a decrease in the development time and an increase in maintainability. Several techniques for implementing features and variability points in the context of SPLs are available, and it is important to choose the right one to exploit the SPL paradigm benefits to the maximum. This work addresses the materialization of fine-grained variability in SPL through code templates and macros, framed in the particular domain of dashboards

A configuration-based domain-specific rule generation framework for process model customization

In today’s changing world, there is an ever-increasing demand and need for software reuse in applications, where the process model needs to be reused in different applications in a domain-specific environment. The process model is required to adapt and implement changes promptly at run-time, in response of the end-user configuration requirements. Furthermore, reusability is emerging strongly as a necessary underlying capability, particularly for customization of business in a dynamic environment where end-users can select their requirements to achieve a specific goal. Such adaptations are in general, performed by non-technical end-users which can lead to losing a significant number of person-days and which can also open up possibilities to introduce errors into the system. These scenarios call for - indeed cry out for - a system with a configurable and customizable business process, operable by users with limited technical expertise. Research aims to provide a framework for generating the rule language and configuring domain constraints. This framework builds upon the core idea of Software Product Lines Engineering (SPLE) and Model-Driven Architecture (MDA). The SPLE provides a platform that includes the variability model. Variability models offer features where end-users can select features and customize possible changes in the domain template, which is the container for domain and process models. The user selects their requirements as a feature from feature models and generates rules from domain models using MDA. Then, the generated rules are translated from a high-level domain model, based on the requirements of the end-user. On the other hand, the weaving model is responsible for reflecting activation and de-activation of features of variabilities in the domain template. The usability of the proposed framework is evaluated with a user study in the area of Digital Content Technology. The results demonstrate that usability improvements can be achieved by using the proposed techniques. The framework can be used to support semi-automatic configuration that is efficient, effective and satisfactory

A Generic method for assembling software product line components

Software product lines (SPL) facilitate the industrialization of software development. The main goal is to create a set of reusable software components for the rapid production of a software systems family. Many authors propose different approaches to implement and assemble the reusable components of an SPL. However, the construction and assembly of these components continue to be a complex and time-consuming process. This thesis analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the current approaches to implement and assemble the reusable components of an SPL. Taking advantage of these elements and with the goal of developing a generic method (which can be applied to several software components developed in different software languages), we develop Fragment-oriented programming (FragOP), a framework to design, implement and reuse SPL domain components. FragOP is based on: (i) domain components, (ii) domain files, (iii) fragmentation points, (iv) fragments, (v) customization points, and (vi) customization files. FragOP was implemented in an open-source tool called VariaMos, and we also carried out three evaluations: (i) we created a clothing stores SPL, derived five different products, and discussed the results. (ii) We developed a discussion about the comparison between FragOP and other approaches. And (iii) we designed and executed a usability test of VariaMos to support the FragOP approach. The results show preliminary evidence that the use of FragOP reduces the manual intervention when assembling SPL domain components and it can be used as a generic method for assembling assets and SPL components developed in different software languages.Las líneas de productos de software (LPS) promueven la industrialización del desarrollo de software mediante la definición y ensamblaje de componentes reutilizables de software. Actualmente existen diferentes propuestas para implementar y ensamblar estos componentes. Sin embargo, su construcción y ensamblaje continúa siendo un proceso complejo y que requiere mucho tiempo. Esta tesis analiza las ventajas y desventajas de las diferentes estrategias actuales para implementación y ensamblaje de componentes de LPS. Con base en esto y con el objetivo de desarrollar un método genérico (el cual se pueda aplicar a múltiples componentes de software desarrollados en diferentes lenguajes), esta tesis desarrolla la programación orientada a fragmentos (FragOP), la cual define un marco de trabajo para diseñar, implementar y reutilizar componentes de dominio de LPS. FragOP se basa en: (i) componentes de dominio, (ii) archivos de dominio, (iii) puntos de fragmentación, (iv) fragmentos, (v) puntos de personalización, y (vi) archivos de personalización. Además, se realizó una implementación de FragOP en una herramienta llamada VariaMos, y se llevaron a cabo tres evaluaciones: (i) se creó una LPS de tiendas de ropa, se derivaron cinco productos y se discutieron los resultados. (ii) Se realizó una discusión acerca de la comparación de FragOP y otras propuestas actuales. Y (iii) se diseñó una prueba de usabilidad acerca del soporte de VariaMos para FragOP. Los resultados muestran evidencia preliminar de que el uso de FragOP reduce la intervención manual cuando se ensamblan componentes, y que FragOP puede usarse como un método genérico para el ensamblaje de componentes.Doctorad

WeaFQAs: A Software Product Line Approach for Customizing and Weaving Efficient Functional Quality Attributes

Fecha de Lectura de Tesis: 10 de julio de 2018Los atributos de calidad funcionales (FQA) son aquellos que tienen una clara implicación en la funcionalidad del sistema, es decir, existen unos componentes específicos que deben ser incorporados a la arquitectura software del sistema para satisfacer sus requisitos de atributos de calidad. Ejemplos de FQAs son seguridad, usabilidad, o persistencia. Modelar estos atributos es una tarea compleja. Por un lado, se componen de muchas características relacionadas, por ejemplo seguridad está compuesto, entre otros, por autenticación, confidencialidad y encriptación. Tienen dependencias entre ellos, por ejemplo, seguridad puede ser requerido por usabilidad o persistencia. Por otro lado, tienen muchos puntos de variabilidad: una aplicación concreta puede requerir autenticación y control de acceso mientras que otra puede necesitar sólo encriptación. Además, su funcionalidad suele estar dispersa afectando a varios componentes del sistema en desarrollo. El objetivo de esta tesis es definir una línea de productos software orientada a aspectos que permita: (1) modelar las similitudes y la variabilidad de los FQAs desde las primeras etapas del proceso de desarrollo, (2) gestionar las dependencias existentes entre los FQAs, (3) independizar el modelado de los FQAs de la arquitectura de la aplicación afectada, (4) configurar los FQAs en base a los requisitos de cada aplicación teniendo además en cuenta propiedades no funcionales como el rendimiento y el consumo energético de cada solución, (5) incorporar las configuraciones a la arquitectura de la aplicación de manera automática; y (6) gestionar la evolución de los FQAs cuando los requisitos cambien en el futuro. Como resultado se ha definido WeaFQAs, un proceso software para gestionar los FQAs que cubre todos los puntos mencionados. Se han realizado y comparado dos instanciaciones de WeaFQAs usando diferentes lenguajes de variabilidad y de modelado, además de proporcionar soporte con una herramienta basada en el lenguaje CVL

Integrating the common variability language with multilanguage annotations for web engineering

Web applications development involves managing a high diversity of files and resources like code, pages or style sheets, implemented in different languages. To deal with the automatic generation of custom-made configurations of web applications, industry usually adopts annotation-based approaches even though the majority of studies encourage the use of composition-based approaches to implement Software Product Lines. Recent work tries to combine both approaches to get the complementary benefits. However, technological companies are reticent to adopt new development paradigms such as feature-oriented programming or aspect-oriented programming. Moreover, it is extremely difficult, or even impossible, to apply these programming models to web applications, mainly because of their multilingual nature, since their development involves multiple types of source code (Java, Groovy, JavaScript), templates (HTML, Markdown, XML), style sheet files (CSS and its variants, such as SCSS), and other files (JSON, YML, shell scripts). We propose to use the Common Variability Language as a composition-based approach and integrate annotations to manage fine grained variability of a Software Product Line for web applications. In this paper, we (i) show that existing composition and annotation-based approaches, including some well-known combinations, are not appropriate to model and implement the variability of web applications; and (ii) present a combined approach that effectively integrates annotations into a composition-based approach for web applications. We implement our approach and show its applicability with an industrial real-world system.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Achieving non-intrusive interoperability between models for involving users in modeling tasks

[EN] Model-Driven Development (MDD) promotes models as the cornerstone in the software development process, thereby displacing source code as the development process's main feature. Although this model-centric schema claims advantages over traditional software development (e.g., the code could be automatically generated from the models), it does not have the level of adoption that has been expected. The literature review reveals a broad agreement in the fact that end-users may develop and adapt systems themselves but the complexity in modeling standards and the lack of modeling skills prevents their active involvement in modeling tasks of existing MDD processes. To overcome this, end-users should be provided with different modeling languages that use concepts, which fit their particular skills, context and needs. This challenge is the main goal of this thesis, which is addressed by combining the End-user Development and the Model-Driven Development fields. This work starts with the involvement of end-users into the modeling tasks using a tool-supported visual modeling language that allows end-users to select and customize system features of pervasive systems using closer concepts for them. Afterwards, this thesis shows the necessity of enriching existing MDD processes for supporting the development of a new generation of software systems (e.g., smart health) that require expertise in a variety of domains. Consequently, different types of users (e.g., scientists, engineers and end-users) must actively participate in the description of model fragments that depend on their expertise using a different modeling language. Thus, users are able to collaborate to obtain a unified system description. At this point, it becomes necessary to provide mechanisms that transforms models fragments from one modeling language to another, delimits which model fragments are described by a different user, and integrates those model fragments. To provide this, the presented approach encompasses variability management in a novel way to enable collaborative modeling by supporting both the selection of model fragments of the system that may be described using a different modeling language, and the integration of those model fragments once they are described. Furthermore, interoperability mechanisms bridge two different modeling languages in a non-intrusive way with the structure of models by transforming the description of gaps. Thus, our proposal could enrich models of existing MDD processes with model fragments that have been described using a different modeling language, which could make users feel confident to adopt models for describing domain-specific content and could help to adopt MDD processes. The proposal has been validated in three case studies from different levels of complexity and domains: smart home systems, web information systems, and biomechanical protocols. The results have proven the applicability and feasibility of our approach to actively involve different types of users (end- users with software professionals, domain experts with software development experts, and doctors with biomedical engineers, respectively) in model descriptions of existing MDD processes using a different modeling language.[ES] En el Desarrollo de Software Dirigido por Modelos (DSDM) los modelos son la piedra angular del proceso de desarrollo de software, desplazando así al código fuente como artefacto principal. Aunque este enfoque centrado en modelos ofrece ventajas sobre el desarrollo de software tradicional (por ejemplo, la generación de código de forma automática a partir de los modelos) no tiene el nivel de adopción esperado. La literatura científica revela un amplio acuerdo en el hecho de que los usuarios finales puedan ellos mismos desarrollar y adaptar los sistemas pero la complejidad de los estándares de modelado y la carencia de habilidades de modelado impide su participación activa en procesos DSDM existentes. Para lograrlo, los usuarios finales deben disponer de lenguajes de modelado diferentes con conceptos adaptados a sus habilidades, contexto y necesidades. Este desafío es el objetivo principal de esta tesis que se aborda combinando las ideas del desarrollo orientado al usuario final y el DSDM. Este trabajo comienza involucrando usuarios finales en tareas de modelado con una herramienta que les proporciona un lenguaje de modelado visual para seleccionar y personalizar características de un sistema pervasivo utilizando conceptos familiares para ellos. Después, esta tesis motiva la necesidad de enriquecer procesos de DSDM existentes para soportar el desarrollo de una nueva generación de sistemas software (por ejemplo, salud inteligente) que requieren conocimientos especializados en una variedad de dominios. Consecuentemente, diferentes tipos de usuarios (por ejemplo, científicos, ingenieros y usuarios finales) deben participar activamente en la descripción de fragmentos de modelos que dependen de su experiencia utilizando un lenguaje de modelado diferente. De este modo, los usuarios pueden colaborar para obtener una descripción del sistema unificada. En este punto, es necesario proporcionar mecanismos que transformen e integren los fragmentos de un lenguaje de modelado a otro y delimiten qué fragmentos se describen por un usuario diferente. Para proporcionar esto, la propuesta presentada utiliza la gestión de variabilidad de forma novedosa para permitir modelado colaborativo seleccionando fragmentos de un modelo del sistema que pueden ser descritos utilizando un lenguaje de modelado diferente y, la integración de esos fragmentos una vez que hayan sido descritos. Además, la propuesta utiliza mecanismos de interoperabilidad para conectar dos lenguajes de modelado diferentes transformando la descripción de los fragmentos de una manera no invasiva con su estructura. Por tanto, nuestra propuesta puede enriquecer los modelos de procesos DSDM existentes con fragmentos de modelos que han sido descritos con un lenguaje diferente y esto, podría hacer que los usuarios se sientan seguros al adoptar modelos para describir contenido de dominio específico y podría ayudar a adoptar procesos DSDM. La propuesta ha sido validada en tres casos de estudio con diferentes niveles de complejidad y dominios: sistemas para el hogar inteligente, sistemas de información web y protocolos biomecánicos. Los resultados han demostrado la aplicabilidad y viabilidad de nuestra propuesta para involucrar diferentes tipos de usuarios (usuarios finales con profesionales de software, expertos en el dominio con expertos en desarrollo de software y, médicos con ingenieros biomédicos, respectivamente) en descripciones de modelos de procesos DSDM existentes utilizando un lenguaje de modelado diferente.[CA] En el Desenvolupament de Programari Dirigit per Models (DPDM) els models són la pedra angular del procés de desenvolupament de programari, desplaçant així al codi font com a artefacte principal. Encara que aquest enfocament centrat en models ofereix avantatges sobre el desenvolupament de programari tradicional (per exemple, la generació de codi de forma automàtica a partir dels models) no té el nivell d'adopció esperat. La literatura científica revela un ampli acord en el fet que els usuaris finals puguen ells mateixos desenvolupar i adaptar els sistemes però la complexitat dels estàndards de modelatge i la falta d'habilitats de modelatge impedeix la seua participació activa en processos DPDM existents. Per a aconseguir-ho, els usuaris finals han de disposar de llenguatges de modelatge diferents amb conceptes adaptats a les seues habilitats, context i necessitats. Aquest desafiament és l'objectiu principal d'aquesta tesi que s'aborda combinant les idees del desenvolupament orientat a l'usuari final i el DPDM. Aquest treball comença involucrant usuaris finals en tasques de modelatge amb una eina que els proporciona un llenguatge de modelatge visual que permet als usuaris finals seleccionar i personalitzar característiques d'un sistema pervasiu utilitzant conceptes familiars per a ells. Després, aquesta tesi motiva la necessitat d'enriquir processos de DPDM existents per a suportar el desenvolupament d'una nova generació de sistemes programari (per exemple, salut intel¿ligent) que requereixen coneixements especialitzats en una varietat de dominis. Conseqüentment, diferents tipus d'usuaris (per exemple, científics, enginyers i usuaris finals) han de participar activament en la descripció de fragments de models que depenen de la seua experiència utilitzant un llenguatge de modelatge diferent. D'aquesta manera, els usuaris poden col¿laborar per a obtenir una descripció del sistema unificada. En aquest punt, és necessari proporcionar mecanismes que transformen i integren els fragments d'un llenguatge de modelatge a un altre i delimiten quins fragments es descriuen per un usuari diferent. Per a proporcionar açò, la proposta presentada utilitza la gestió de variabilitat de forma nova per a permetre modelatge col.laboratiu seleccionant fragments d'un model del sistema que poden ser descrits utilitzant un llenguatge de modelatge diferent i, la integració d'aqueixos fragments una vegada que hagen sigut descrits. A més, la proposta utilitza mecanismes d'interoperabilitat per a connectar dos llenguatges de modelatge diferents transformant la descripció dels fragments d'una manera no invasiva amb la seua estructura. Per tant, la nostra proposta pot enriquir els models de processos DPDM existents amb fragments de models que han sigut descrits amb un llenguatge diferent i açò, podria fer que els usuaris se senten segurs en adoptar models per a descriure contingut de domini específic i podria ajudar a adoptar processos DPDM. La proposta ha sigut validada en tres casos d'estudi amb diferents nivells de complexitat i dominis: sistemes per a la llar intel¿ligent, sistemes d'informació web i protocols biomecànics. Els resultats han demostrat l'aplicabilitat i viabilitat de la nostra proposta per a involucrar diferents tipus d'usuaris (usuaris finals amb professionals de programari, experts en el domini amb experts en desenvolupament de programari i, metges amb enginyers biomèdics, respectivament) en descripcions de models de processos DPDM existents utilitzant un llenguatge de modelatge diferent.Pérez Pérez, MF. (2015). Achieving non-intrusive interoperability between models for involving users in modeling tasks [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/58429TESI