Variability Management in Domain-Specific Languages

International audienceDomain-specific languages (DSLs) allow domain experts to express solutions directly in terms of relevant domain concepts and, for example, use generative mechanisms to transform DSL' specifications into software artifacts (e.g. code, configuration files or documentation). Thus, abstracting away from the complexity of the rest of the system and the intricacies of its implementation. As a result, the construction of DSLs is becoming a recurrent activity during the development of software intensive systems. However, the construction of DSLs is a challenging task due to the specialized knowledge it requires; in order to successfully perform such activity, an engineer must own not only quite solid modeling skills but also the technical expertise for conducting the definition of specific artifacts such as grammars, metamodels, compilers, interpreters, among others. The situation becomes even more challenging in the context of multi-domain companies (e.g. Thales) where several domains coexist across the business units and, consequently, there is a need to deal with families of DSLs. A family of DSLs is a set of DSLs that share some commonalities and that differ by some variability that, in turn, is materialized in certain variation points existing at three different dimensions: functional, syntactical and semantical. Functional variation points refer to the capability of creating DSLs including only a subset of constructs of the whole language so it is possible to create stakeholder-specific DSLs while maintaining them as simpler as possible. Syntactic variation points refers to different representations of the same concept (e.g., graphical and textual representation). Finally, semantic variation points refer to different interpretation to the same concept by two members of the family (e.g., the concept \textit{fork} in the case of the state machines can be interpreted as a concurrency point where all the output transitions are dispatched simultaneously or simply as a bifurcation point where the output transitions are dispatched sequentially). Recent research works have demonstrated the benefits of the use of software product lines engineering (SPLE) in the construction of families DSLs. All of these works agree on the need of a modularization approach that enables the decomposition of a DSL into independent modules and a variability management mechanism for effectively dealing with the differences and commonalities among the DSLs members of the family.The research summarized in this document is aimed to contribute to this study. Concretely speaking, we work on the formalization of the alignment between the modularization approach and the variability management mechanism taking into account the three dimensions of the variability. Our preliminary results suggest the need of the definition of language interfaces for addressing each variability realization technique for the particular case of DSLs. In addition, an strategy should be conceived for modeling the multi-dimensional variability existing in families DSLs in such a way that facilitates the configuration and derivation of DSLs according to the specific needs of the users. As part of the validation process, we are applying all these ideas in a real word industrial case study in the context of Thales Group

Assiduousness of Domain production in Secretarial Executive System

In the foregoing dissertation, I tried to put forward language description formalism called Collages. It can be used to engineer Domain Specific Languages (DSLs), which are computer languages made to solve problems of specific domains. Here the focus on DSLs which have algorithmic design and are supposed to be used in corporate environments. Domain specific language can be broken in three parts, these are abstract syntax, description language conceptualization & relationship among them and last is their constraints which encode rules of domain. Domain’s concrete syntax produces graphical and textual presentation of abstract syntax elements. Their semantics meaning are normally defined operationally. Operational semantics normally encoded system behavior and could be described as a collection of “elements”, each denoting the transformation This paper present on sphere feature model, sphere architecture   design   and   area   implementation   in   an enterprise.  This  paper  demonstrates  the  accounting management   feature   modeling   based   on   the   extended (Feature-Oriented   Domain   Analysis)   FODA  method   and system architecture of accounting management domain, integrates Aspect Object Oriented Programming technology with domain implementation, and designs a whippersnapper AOP   framework   based  on  the  object   proxy  pattern  to separates crosscutting concerns in the domain implementation phrase. Research result shows this method can effectively seal insulate and abstract variability in requirements of accounting management domain, instruct the designing and implementation of accounting management components, get the requirement of software reuse, resource sharing and collaboration in accounting management domain

Composition and Self-Adaptation of Service-Based Systems with Feature Models

The adoption of mechanisms for reusing software in pervasive systems has not yet become standard practice. This is because the use of pre-existing software requires the selection, composition and adaptation of prefabricated software parts, as well as the management of some complex problems such as guaranteeing high levels of efficiency and safety in critical domains. In addition to the wide variety of services, pervasive systems are composed of many networked heterogeneous devices with embedded software. In this work, we promote the safe reuse of services in service-based systems using two complementary technologies, Service-Oriented Architecture and Software Product Lines. In order to do this, we extend both the service discovery and composition processes defined in the DAMASCo framework, which currently does not deal with the service variability that constitutes pervasive systems. We use feature models to represent the variability and to self-adapt the services during the composition in a safe way taking context changes into consideration. We illustrate our proposal with a case study related to the driving domain of an Intelligent Transportation System, handling the context information of the environment.Work partially supported by the projects TIN2008-05932, TIN2008-01942, TIN2012-35669, TIN2012-34840 and CSD2007-0004 funded by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER; P09-TIC-05231 and P11-TIC-7659 funded by Andalusian Government; and FP7-317731 funded by EU. Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

HybridMDSD: Multi-Domain Engineering with Model-Driven Software Development using Ontological Foundations

Software development is a complex task. Executable applications comprise a mutlitude of diverse components that are developed with various frameworks, libraries, or communication platforms. The technical complexity in development retains resources, hampers efficient problem solving, and thus increases the overall cost of software production. Another significant challenge in market-driven software engineering is the variety of customer needs. It necessitates a maximum of flexibility in software implementations to facilitate the deployment of different products that are based on one single core. To reduce technical complexity, the paradigm of Model-Driven Software Development (MDSD) facilitates the abstract specification of software based on modeling languages. Corresponding models are used to generate actual programming code without the need for creating manually written, error-prone assets. Modeling languages that are tailored towards a particular domain are called domain-specific languages (DSLs). Domain-specific modeling (DSM) approximates technical solutions with intentional problems and fosters the unfolding of specialized expertise. To cope with feature diversity in applications, the Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE) community provides means for the management of variability in software products, such as feature models and appropriate tools for mapping features to implementation assets. Model-driven development, domain-specific modeling, and the dedicated management of variability in SPLE are vital for the success of software enterprises. Yet, these paradigms exist in isolation and need to be integrated in order to exhaust the advantages of every single approach. In this thesis, we propose a way to do so. We introduce the paradigm of Multi-Domain Engineering (MDE) which means model-driven development with multiple domain-specific languages in variability-intensive scenarios. MDE strongly emphasize the advantages of MDSD with multiple DSLs as a neccessity for efficiency in software development and treats the paradigm of SPLE as indispensable means to achieve a maximum degree of reuse and flexibility. We present HybridMDSD as our solution approach to implement the MDE paradigm. The core idea of HybidMDSD is to capture the semantics of particular DSLs based on properly defined semantics for software models contained in a central upper ontology. Then, the resulting semantic foundation can be used to establish references between arbitrary domain-specific models (DSMs) and sophisticated instance level reasoning ensures integrity and allows to handle partiucular change adaptation scenarios. Moreover, we present an approach to automatically generate composition code that integrates generated assets from separate DSLs. All necessary development tasks are arranged in a comprehensive development process. Finally, we validate the introduced approach with a profound prototypical implementation and an industrial-scale case study.Softwareentwicklung ist komplex: ausführbare Anwendungen beinhalten und vereinen eine Vielzahl an Komponenten, die mit unterschiedlichen Frameworks, Bibliotheken oder Kommunikationsplattformen entwickelt werden. Die technische Komplexität in der Entwicklung bindet Ressourcen, verhindert effiziente Problemlösung und führt zu insgesamt hohen Kosten bei der Produktion von Software. Zusätzliche Herausforderungen entstehen durch die Vielfalt und Unterschiedlichkeit an Kundenwünschen, die der Entwicklung ein hohes Maß an Flexibilität in Software-Implementierungen abverlangen und die Auslieferung verschiedener Produkte auf Grundlage einer Basis-Implementierung nötig machen. Zur Reduktion der technischen Komplexität bietet sich das Paradigma der modellgetriebenen Softwareentwicklung (MDSD) an. Software-Spezifikationen in Form abstrakter Modelle werden hier verwendet um Programmcode zu generieren, was die fehleranfällige, manuelle Programmierung ähnlicher Komponenten überflüssig macht. Modellierungssprachen, die auf eine bestimmte Problemdomäne zugeschnitten sind, nennt man domänenspezifische Sprachen (DSLs). Domänenspezifische Modellierung (DSM) vereint technische Lösungen mit intentionalen Problemen und ermöglicht die Entfaltung spezialisierter Expertise. Um der Funktionsvielfalt in Software Herr zu werden, bietet der Forschungszweig der Softwareproduktlinienentwicklung (SPLE) verschiedene Mittel zur Verwaltung von Variabilität in Software-Produkten an. Hierzu zählen Feature-Modelle sowie passende Werkzeuge, um Features auf Implementierungsbestandteile abzubilden. Modellgetriebene Entwicklung, domänenspezifische Modellierung und eine spezielle Handhabung von Variabilität in Softwareproduktlinien sind von entscheidender Bedeutung für den Erfolg von Softwarefirmen. Zur Zeit bestehen diese Paradigmen losgelöst voneinander und müssen integriert werden, damit die Vorteile jedes einzelnen für die Gesamtheit der Softwareentwicklung entfaltet werden können. In dieser Arbeit wird ein Ansatz vorgestellt, der dies ermöglicht. Es wird das Multi-Domain Engineering Paradigma (MDE) eingeführt, welches die modellgetriebene Softwareentwicklung mit mehreren domänenspezifischen Sprachen in variabilitätszentrierten Szenarien beschreibt. MDE stellt die Vorteile modellgetriebener Entwicklung mit mehreren DSLs als eine Notwendigkeit für Effizienz in der Entwicklung heraus und betrachtet das SPLE-Paradigma als unabdingbares Mittel um ein Maximum an Wiederverwendbarkeit und Flexibilität zu erzielen. In der Arbeit wird ein Ansatz zur Implementierung des MDE-Paradigmas, mit dem Namen HybridMDSD, vorgestellt