Granularity in software product lines

Building software product lines (SPLs) with features is a challenging task. Many SPL implementations support features with coarse granularity ? e.g., the ability to add and wrap entire methods. However, fine-grained extensions, like adding a statement in the middle of a method, either require intricate workarounds or obfuscate the base code with annotations. Though many SPLs can and have been implemented with the coarse granularity of existing approaches, fine-grained extensions are essential when extracting features from legacy applications. Furthermore, also some existing SPLs could benefit from fine-grained extensions to reduce code replication or improve readability. In this paper, we analyze the effects of feature granularity in SPLs and present a tool, called Colored IDE (CIDE), that allows features to implement coarse-grained and fine-grained extensions in a concise way. In two case studies, we show how CIDE simplifies SPL development compared to traditional approaches. Categor...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: ICSE
• Authors: Christian Kästner, Martin Kuhlemann, Sven Apel
• Keywords: Coarse Granularity, Fine-grained Extensions, ICSE 2008, Many SPL Implementations, Software Engineering