A case study on variability management in software product lines: identifying why real-life projects fail

Economies of scale can be seen as some kind of “holy grail” in state of the art literature on the development of sets of related software systems. Software product line methods are often mentioned in this context, due to the variability management aspects they propose, in order to deal with sets of related software systems. They realize the sought-after reusability. Both variability management and software product lines already have a strong presence in theoretical research, but in real-life software product line projects trying to obtain economies of scale still tend to fall short of target. The objective of this paper is to study this gap between theory and reality through a case study in order to see why such gap exists, and to find a way to bridge this gap. Through analysis of the causes of failure identified by the stakeholders in the case study, the underlying problem, which is found to be located in the requirements engineering phase, is crystallized. The identification of a framework describing the problems will provide practitioners with a better focus for future endeavors in the field of software product lines, so that economies of scale can be achieved

Exadat: Análisis de Variabilidad en Persistencia de Productos de Software

Existe una tendencia mundial hacia el desarrollo y evolución de familias de productos en lugar de la creación de un producto de software para un cliente específico. Sin embargo, es común la construcción de tal familia a partir de varios sistemas a medida. Además, estas implementaciones usualmente carecen de la documentación de la arquitectura implementada. A partir de esta problemática se plantea en este trabajo la identificación de familia de productos de software desde una perspectiva de persistencia. El enfoque propuesto utiliza mecanismos de ingeniería reversa para reconstruir la arquitectura del producto implementado. A partir de la arquitectura se identifican posibles puntos de variación y variantes implicadas en la persistencia de datos.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

IDENTIFICATION AND QUANTIFICATION OF VARIABILITY MEASURES AFFECTING CODE REUSABILITY IN OPEN SOURCE ENVIRONMENT

Open source software (OSS) is one of the emerging areas in software engineering, and is gaining the interest of the software development community. OSS was started as a movement, and for many years software developers contributed to it as their hobby (non commercial purpose). Now, OSS components are being reused in CBSD (commercial purpose). However, recently, the use of OSS in SPL is envisioned recently by software engineering researchers, thus bringing it into a new arena. Being an emerging research area, it demands exploratory study to explore the dimensions of this phenomenon. Furthermore, there is a need to assess the reusability of OSS which is the focal point of these disciplines (CBSE, SPL, and OSS). In this research, a mixed method based approach is employed which is specifically 'partially mixed sequential dominant study'. It involves both qualitative (interviews) and quantitative phases (survey and experiment). During the qualitative phase seven respondents were involved, sample size of survey was 396, and three experiments were conducted. The main contribution of this study is results of exploration of the phenomenon 'reuse of OSS in reuse intensive software development'. The findings include 7 categories and 39 dimensions. One of the dimension factors affecting reusability was carried to the quantitative phase (survey and experiment). On basis of the findings, proposal for reusability attribute model was presented at class and package level. Variability is one of the newly identified attribute of reusability. A comprehensive theoretical analysis of variability implementation mechanisms is conducted to propose metrics for its assessment. The reusability attribute model is validated by statistical analysis of I 03 classes and 77 packages. An evolutionary reusability analysis of two open source software was conducted, where different versions of software are analyzed for their reusability. The results show a positive correlation between variability and reusability at package level and validate the other identified attributes. The results would be helpful to conduct further studies in this area

IDENTIFICATION AND QUANTIFICATION OF VARIABILITY MEASURES AFFECTING CODE REUSABILITY IN OPEN SOURCE ENVIRONMENT

Open source software (OSS) is one of the emerging areas in software engineering, and is gaining the interest of the software development community. OSS was started as a movement, and for many years software developers contributed to it as their hobby (non commercial purpose). Now, OSS components are being reused in CBSD (commercial purpose). However, recently, the use of OSS in SPL is envisioned recently by software engineering researchers, thus bringing it into a new arena. Being an emerging research area, it demands exploratory study to explore the dimensions of this phenomenon. Furthermore, there is a need to assess the reusability of OSS which is the focal point of these disciplines (CBSE, SPL, and OSS). In this research, a mixed method based approach is employed which is specifically 'partially mixed sequential dominant study'. It involves both qualitative (interviews) and quantitative phases (survey and experiment). During the qualitative phase seven respondents were involved, sample size of survey was 396, and three experiments were conducted. The main contribution of this study is results of exploration of the phenomenon 'reuse of OSS in reuse intensive software development'. The findings include 7 categories and 39 dimensions. One of the dimension factors affecting reusability was carried to the quantitative phase (survey and experiment). On basis of the findings, proposal for reusability attribute model was presented at class and package level. Variability is one of the newly identified attribute of reusability. A comprehensive theoretical analysis of variability implementation mechanisms is conducted to propose metrics for its assessment. The reusability attribute model is validated by statistical analysis of I 03 classes and 77 packages. An evolutionary reusability analysis of two open source software was conducted, where different versions of software are analyzed for their reusability. The results show a positive correlation between variability and reusability at package level and validate the other identified attributes. The results would be helpful to conduct further studies in this area

Une modélisation de la variabilité multidimensionnelle pour une évolution incrémentale des lignes de produits

Le doctorat s'inscrit dans le cadre d'une bourse CIFRE et d'un partenariat entre l'ENSTA Bretagne, l'IRISA et Thales Air Systems. Les préoccupations de ce dernier, et plus particulièrement de l'équipe de rattachement, sont de réaliser des systèmes à logiciels prépondérants embarqués. La complexité de ces systèmes et les besoins de compétitivité associés font émerger la notion de "Model-Based Product Lines(MBPLs)". Celles-ci tendent à réaliser une synergie de l'abstraction de l'Ingénierie Dirigée par les Modèles (IDM) et de la capacité de gestion de la capitalisation et réutilisation des Lignes de Produits (LdPs). La nature irrévocablement dynamique des systèmes réels induit une évolution permanente des LdPs afin de répondre aux nouvelles exigences des clients et pour refléter les changements des artefacts internes de la LdP. L'objectif de cette thèse est unique, maîtriser des incréments d'évolution d'une ligne de produits de systèmes complexes, les contributions pour y parvenir sont duales. La thèse est que 1) une variabilité multidimensionnelle ainsi qu'une modélisation relationnelle est requise dans le cadre de lignes de produits de systèmes complexes pour en améliorer la compréhension et en faciliter l'évolution (proposition d'un cadre générique de décomposition de la modélisation et d'un langage (DSML) nommé PLiMoS, dédié à l'expression relationnelle et intentionnelle dans les MBPLs), et que 2) les efforts de spécialisation lors de la dérivation d'un produit ainsi que l'évolution de la LdP doivent être guidé par une architecture conceptuelle (introduction de motifs architecturaux autour de PLiMoS et du patron ABCDE) et capitalisés dans un processus outillé semi-automatisé d'évolution incrémentale des lignes de produits par extension.The PhD (CIFRE fundings) was supported by a partnership between three actors: ENSTA Bretagne, IRISA and Thales Air Systems. The latter's concerns, and more precisely the ones from the affiliation team, are to build embedded software-intensive systems. The complexity of these systems, combined to the need of competitivity, reveal the notion of Model-Based Product Lines (MBPLs). They make a synergy of the capabilities of modeling and product line approaches, and enable more efficient solutions for modularization with the distinction of abstraction levels and separation of concerns. Besides, the dynamic nature of real-world systems induces that product line models need to evolve continually to meet new customer requirements and to reflect changes in product line artifacts. The aim of the thesis is to handle the increments of evolution of complex systems product lines, the contributions to achieve it are twofolds. The thesis claims that i) a multidimensional variability and a relational modeling are required within a complex system product line in order to enhance comprehension and ease the PL evolution (Conceptual model modularization framework and PliMoS Domain Specific Modeling Language proposition; the language is dedicated to relational and intentional expressions in MBPLs), and that ii) specialization efforts during product derivation have to be guided by a conceptual architecture (architectural patterns on top of PLiMoS, e.g.~ABCDE) and capitalized within a semi-automatic tooled process allowing the incremental PL evolution by extension.RENNES1-Bibl. électronique (352382106) / SudocSudocFranceF