research-article

Unanticipated Evolution in Software Product Lines versus Independent Products: A Case Study

Authors:

Robert J. Walker, and

Maged ElaasarAuthors Info & Claims

SPLC '17: Proceedings of the 21st International Systems and Software Product Line Conference - Volume B

September 2017

Pages 97 - 104

https://doi.org/10.1145/3109729.3109739

Published: 25 September 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Real product families need to evolve in ways that are not always anticipated by a pre-planned design. Any given approach for software product lines will likely lead to both positive and negative consequences during unanticipated software evolution. Unfortunately, we know little about the evolvability characteristics of SPL approaches that concern both modelling and implementation, limiting our ability to make rational and disciplined decisions about adoption. We conduct a case study into the unanticipated evolution of a software product family using two approaches: separate products versus a common codebase using delta-oriented programming (DOP). We compare the ease of change within the two versions through a set of quantitative measurements and qualitative observations. We find that both versions have strengths and weaknesses: complexity and incomplete support from DOP tools versus significant duplication and error-proneness in the separate products.

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Cited By

Camargo LFantin LLobão GFigueiredo TBonifacio RGomes KTeixeira L(2021)Evolving Delta-Oriented Product Lines: A Case Study on Feature Interaction, Safe and Partially Safe EvolutionProceedings of the XXXV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/3474624.3474645(95-104)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3474624.3474645
Hamza MWalker RElaasar M(2018)CIAhelperProceedings of the 22nd International Systems and Software Product Line Conference - Volume 110.1145/3233027.3233036(31-42)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3233027.3233036

Index Terms

Unanticipated Evolution in Software Product Lines versus Independent Products: A Case Study
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
  2. Software organization and properties
    1. Software system structures
      1. Abstraction, modeling and modularity

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cover image ACM Other conferences

SPLC '17: Proceedings of the 21st International Systems and Software Product Line Conference - Volume B

September 2017

158 pages

ISBN:9781450351195

DOI:10.1145/3109729

Copyright © 2017 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 25 September 2017

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SPLC '17

SPLC '17: 21st International Systems and Software Product Line Conference

September 25 - 29, 2017

Sevilla, Spain

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Cited By

Camargo LFantin LLobão GFigueiredo TBonifacio RGomes KTeixeira L(2021)Evolving Delta-Oriented Product Lines: A Case Study on Feature Interaction, Safe and Partially Safe EvolutionProceedings of the XXXV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/3474624.3474645(95-104)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3474624.3474645
Hamza MWalker RElaasar M(2018)CIAhelperProceedings of the 22nd International Systems and Software Product Line Conference - Volume 110.1145/3233027.3233036(31-42)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3233027.3233036

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