(World Scientific Publishing, 2013-10-01) Heradio Gil, Rubén; Fernández Amoros, David José; Cerrada Somolinos, José Antonio; Abad Cardiel, Ismael
In software product line engineering, feature diagrams are a popular means to represent the similarities and differences within a family of related systems. In addition, feature diagrams implicitly model valuable information that can be used in economic models to estimate the cost savings of a product line. In particular, this paper reviews existing proposals on computing the total number of products modeled with a feature diagram and, given a feature, the number of products that implement it. The paper also reviews the economic information that can be estimated when such numbers are known. Thus, this paper contributes by bringing together previously-disparate streams of work: the automated analysis of feature diagrams and economic models for product lines.
(Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), 2011-03-24) Heradio Gil, Rubén; Fernández Amoros, David José; Cerrada Somolinos, José Antonio; Cerrada Somolinos, Carlos
Software Product Line (SPL) engineering is a cost effective approach to developing families of similar products. Key to the success of this approach is to correctly scope the domain of the SPL, identifying the common and variable features of the products and the interdependencies between features. In this paper, we show how the commonality of a feature (i.e., the reuse ratio of the feature among the products) can be used to detect scope flaws in the early stages of development. SPL domains are usually modeled by means of feature diagrams following the FODA notation. We extend classical FODA trees with unrestricted cardinalities, and present an algorithm to compute the number of products modeled by a feature diagram and the commonality of the features. Finally, we compare the performance of our algorithm with two other approaches built on top of boolean logic SAT-solver technology such as cachet and relsat.
