Improving Product Line Architecture Design and Customization by Raising the Level of Variability Modeling

Product Line Architecture (PLA) plays a central role in software product line development. In order to support architecture-level variability modeling, most architecture description languages (ADLs) introduce architectural variation elements, such as optional component, connector and interface, which must be customized during product derivation. Variation elements are many, and design and customization of PLA at the level of individual variation elements are difficult and error-prone. We observed that developers usually perceive architecture variability from the perspective of variant features or variant design decisions that are mapped into groups of architecture variation elements. In the paper, we describe heuristics to identify configurations of variation elements that typically form such groups. We call them variation constructs. We developed an architecture variability management method and a tool that allow developers to work at the variation construct level rather than at the l...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: ICSR
• Authors: Jiayi Zhu, Xin Peng, Stan Jarzabek, Zhenchang Xing, Yinxing Xue, Wenyun Zhao
• Keywords: Architecture Description Languages, ICSR 2011, Product Line Architecture, Software Engineering, Software Product Line