基于复用的软件产品线工程关键技术研究

软件复用技术在软件工程领域具有重要作用并且被广泛应用,尤其是在软件产品线工程领域,系统化的软件复用技术为软件产品线的设计和实现提供了基础。论文首先详细阐述了具有代表性的系统化软件复用支撑技术,随后在一个通用的软件产品线参考架构的基础上,探讨了复用技术在软件产品线工程领域的主要应用形式,最后针对可变性定义及其管理问题,引人并着重探讨了三种可变性管理模型及技术。     

基于模型对比和组合的软件产品线领域需求建模

软件产品线作为系统化的软件复用方式,可以提高软件的开发效率和质量.软件产品线变化性建模是软件产品线的关键技术,通过建立变化性模型以记录软件产品线成员产品的共性和变化性.目前的软件产品线变化性建模方法大都通过领域专家进行分析建立,这种方法过度依赖于领域专家的分析能力,在系统规模较小的情况下,变化性分析比较容易,但是如果系统规模变大,则系统的规模对于变化性分析的影响会越来越大.文中提出一种半自动的软件产品线领域需求建模方法,基于关注点分离的思路,利用特征模型表示软件产品线中系列产品的不同方面的特征信息,通过特征模型的对比和组合实现领域需求模型的构建.为有效地实现特征模型对比与组合,文中提出一种基于标记和结构的特征模型对比方法,同时,文中实现了基于约束的特征模型组合.基于公开的特征模型,文中对提出的方法进行了验证,实验结果表明,文中提出的领域需求建模方法能够在一定准确率的情况下有效地实现领域需求模型的构建.     

软件产品线可变性的分析和实现技术研究

目前软件产品线技术极大地提高了软件复用的层次,在软件产品线工程中,可变性作为产品的特殊属性涉及到分析、设计和实现的全部阶段。在分析软件产品线可变性的类型、模式,约束依赖关系基础上,总结目前常用的几种可变性的实现技术,包括预处理指令、面向对象、软件配置等软件技术,特别是面向对象和面向切面技术的结合,分析各种实现技术的适用情况,最后针对一个常见的图书馆信息管理系统,根据用面向特征建模方法建立的可变性模型,给出两个可变点的具体实现实例。     

基于软件产品线的需求分析研究

软件产品线方法是一种面向特定领域的、大规模、大粒度的软件复用技术.在软件产品线的开发过程中,产品线需求分析是软件产品线开发的关键活动之一,软件产品线需求分析奠定了产品线构架的基础.通过分析软件产品线开发过程和软件产品线需求分析的特点,阐述了软件产品线需求分析方法以及软件产品线需求分析的实践风险.以领域分析和建模为切入点,对软件产品线的领域分析、需求建模和用例建模等关键方法和技术进行了重点的研究.     

一种基于UML的软件产品线可变性建模方法

将UML引入到软件产品线开发中,在产品线可变性分析的基础上,提出了一种基于UML的产品线可变性建模方法。该方法不仅支持可选、多选一等可变点类型的描述,还支持软件产品线可变性的约束建模。在此基础上,还通过一个手机应用软件的产品线可变性建模实例验证了该方法的有效性。     

煤矿安全监控领域可变性模型

针对传统的软件开发方法每次开发同类系统时,很少能复用之前累积的开发经验,造成大量的重复性劳动的问题,提出了软件产品线开发方法,并将该方法应用于煤矿安全监控系统软件的开发中。在对煤矿安全监控系统产品线分析的基础上,针对监控系统的共性和变性特征,探讨了各特征之间的关系,使用基于特征的可变性建模方法构建了煤矿安全监控领域可变性模型。该模型可对监控系统的可变性进行有效管理,同时在特征依赖规则的指导下,可快速完成具体的可定制监控系统的需求特征分析,为后续煤矿安全监控领域可复用框架的实现奠定了基础。     

两阶段过程模型下的产品线复用策略优化

考虑了软件产品线工程中各软件模块复用策略的选择问题. 在建立软件产品线开发两阶段过程模型的基础上, 归纳出6种典型的复用策略及其实现方式, 提出考虑开发成本、工时、故障率的情况下进行复用策略的选择优化模型, 解决在满足可获得预算、开发周期、系统可靠性需求的约束下产品线质量最优问题. 并基于贝叶斯理论构建易测试函数, 为产品线开发中领域测试强度的估算提供了方法. 最后, 以邮箱服务系统为实例说明该模型的有效 性.     

基于UML用例图的软件产品线需求建模方法

软件产品线方法是一种面向特定领域的、大规模、大粒度的软件复用技术。明确建模和描述软件产品线需求是软件产品线开发的关键问题之一。而传统的UML用例图等方法不足以完整描述产品线需求,特别是其变化性。通过分析软件产品线开发过程和软件产品线需求建模的特殊性,采用扩展UML用例图标签的方法,实现对软件产品线需求的明确描述。以网络图书销售软件产品线为例,进行具体说明。     

软件产品线度量及应用研究

软件复用是提高软件生产力、软件质量的最有潜力的领域,软件产品线实质上是最高级别的软件复用.软件产品线对当前的软件密集性项目的管理提出了新的挑战,它需要管理者有超越单一产品的战略考虑,需要有组织性的预见、调查、规划和指导.一直以来软件过程管理和改进的重要思路是:在软件产品开发管理实践中应用软件度量技术,即通过分析软件过程和产品的相关属性,从而为管理决策实践提供客观的数据支持.针对软件产品线管理的一些关键目标,提出了一些重要的度量技术思路,分析了相应的度量指标,满足了软件产品线各层次管理角色的不同的信息需求.     

产品线可变性的需求方法研究

软件产品线领域需求记录了不同软件产品的共性和可变性。在现有需求过程框架下,对产品线需求获取方法与需求分析方法进行了研究,完善了产品线需求可变性的管控机制。以原子需求为视点,提出了利用需求场景获取产品线领域需求的方法;通过原子需求构建的产品需求矩阵与用例需求矩阵,分析得出需求资源的可变性关系;通过可变性关系的形式化描述,建立产品线可变性用例模型。     

Performance variability in software product lines: proposing theories from a case study

In the software product line research, product variants typically differ by their functionality and quality attributes are not purposefully varied. The goal is to study purposeful performance variability in software product lines, in particular, the motivation to vary performance, and the strategy for realizing performance variability in the product line architecture. The research method was a theory-building case study that was augmented with a systematic literature review. The case was a mobile network base station product line with capacity variability. The data collection, analysis and theorizing were conducted in several stages: the initial case study results were augmented with accounts from the literature. We constructed three theoretical models to explain and characterize performance variability in software product lines: the models aim to be generalizable beyond the single case. The results describe capacity variability in a base station product line. Thereafter, theoretical models of performance variability in software product lines in general are proposed. Performance variability is motivated by customer needs and characteristics, by trade-offs and by varying operating environment constraints. Performance variability can be realized by hardware or software means; moreover, the software can either realize performance differences in an emergent way through impacts from other variability or by utilizing purposeful varying design tactics. The results point out two differences compared with the prevailing literature. Firstly, when the customer needs and characteristics enable price differentiation, performance may be varied even with no trade-offs or production cost differences involved. Secondly, due to the dominance of feature modeling, the literature focuses on the impact management realization. However, performance variability can be realized through purposeful design tactics to downgrade the available software resources and by having more efficient hardware.     

A systematic review of domain analysis solutions for product lines

Domain analysis is crucial and central to software product line engineering (SPLE) as it is one of the main instruments to decide what to include in a product and how it should fit in to the overall software product line. For this reason many domain analysis solutions have been proposed both by researchers and industry practitioners. Domain analysis comprises various modeling and scoping activities. This paper presents a systematic review of all the domain analysis solutions presented until 2007. The goal of the review is to analyze the level of industrial application and/or empirical validation of the proposed solutions with the purpose of mapping maturity in terms of industrial application, as well as to what extent proposed solutions might have been evaluated in terms of usability and usefulness. The finding of this review indicates that, although many new domain analysis solutions for software product lines have been proposed over the years, the absence of qualitative and quantitative results from empirical application and/or validation makes it hard to evaluate the potential of proposed solutions with respect to their usability and/or usefulness for industry adoption. The detailed results of the systematic review can be used by individual researchers to see large gaps in research that give opportunities for future work, and from a general research perspective lessons can be learned from the absence of validation as well as from good examples presented. From an industry practitioner view, the results can be used to gauge as to what extent solutions have been applied and/or validated and in what manner, both valuable as input prior to industry adoption of a domain analysis solution.     

Supporting distributed product configuration by integrating heterogeneous variability modeling approaches

ContextIn industrial settings products are developed by more than one organization. Software vendors and suppliers commonly typically maintain their own product lines, which contribute to a larger (multi) product line or software ecosystem. It is unrealistic to assume that the participating organizations will agree on using a specific variability modeling technique—they will rather use different approaches and tools to manage the variability of their systems.ObjectiveWe aim to support product configuration in software ecosystems based on several variability models with different semantics that have been created using different notations.MethodWe present an integrative approach that provides a unified perspective to users configuring products in multi product line environments, regardless of the different modeling methods and tools used internally. We also present a technical infrastructure and a prototype implementation based on web services.ResultsWe show the feasibility of the approach and its implementation by using it with the three most widespread types of variability modeling approaches in the product line community, i.e., feature-based, OVM-style, and decision-oriented modeling. To demonstrate the feasibility and flexibility of our approach, we present an example derived from industrial experience in enterprise resource planning. We further applied the approach to support the configuration of privacy settings in the Android ecosystem based on multiple variability models. We also evaluated the performance of different model enactment strategies used in our approach.ConclusionsTools and techniques allowing stakeholders to handle variability in a uniform manner can considerably foster the initiation and growth of software ecosystems from the perspective of software reuse and configuration.     

A holistic approach to feature modeling for product line requirements engineering

Requirements engineering (RE) offers the means to discover, model, and manage the requirements of the products that comprise a product line, while software product line engineering (SPLE) offers the means of realizing the products’ requirements from a common base of software assets. In practice, however, RE and SPLE have proven to be less complementary than they should. While some RE techniques, particularly goal modeling, support the exploration of alternative solutions, the appropriate solution is typically conditional on context and a large product line may have many product-defining contexts. Thus, scalability and traceability through into product line features are key challenges for RE. Feature modeling, by contrast, has been widely accepted as a way of modeling commonality and variability of products of a product line that may be very complex. In this paper, we propose a goal-driven feature modeling approach that separates a feature space in terms of problem space and solution space features, and establish explicit mappings between them. This approach contributes to reducing the inherent complexity of a mixed-view feature model, deriving key engineering drivers for developing core assets of a product line, and facilitating the quality-based product configuration.     

基于特征模型的软件产品线可变性建模方法

特征建模是软件产品线开发中的一项关键活动,对特征可变性和特征依赖的建模是特征模型中最重要的组成部分。阐述了特征模型的元模型,着重讨论了特征可变性建模过程,详细分析了特征可变性、特征之间关系、特征依赖类型的识别方法和使用特征依赖矩阵的表示方法。在此基础上,还通过一个库房监视系统应用软件的产品线可变性建模实例验证了该方法的有效性。     

Defining variability in activity diagrams and Petri nets

Control flow models, such as UML activity diagrams or Petri nets, are widely accepted modeling languages used to support quality assurance activities in single system engineering as well as software product line (SPL) engineering. Quality assurance in product line engineering is a challenging task since a defect in a domain artifact may affect several products of the product line. Thus, proper quality assurance approaches need to pay special attention to the product line variability. Automation is essential to support quality assurance approaches. A prerequisite for automation is a profound formalization of the underlying control flow models and, in the context of SPLs, of the variability therein.     

Classifying variability modeling techniques

Variability modeling is important for managing variability in software product families, especially during product derivation. In the past few years, several variability modeling techniques have been developed, each using its own concepts to model the variability provided by a product family. The publications regarding these techniques were written from different viewpoints, use different examples, and rely on a different technical background. This paper sheds light on the similarities and differences between six variability modeling techniques, by exemplifying the techniques with one running example, and classifying them using a framework of key characteristics for variability modeling. It furthermore discusses the relation between differences among those techniques, and the scope, size, and application domain of product families.     

A code tagging approach to software product line development

Software product line engineering seeks to systematise reuse when developing families of similar software systems so as to minimise development time, cost and defects. To realise variability at the code level, product line methods classically advocate usage of inheritance, components, frameworks, aspects or generative techniques. However, these might require unaffordable paradigm shifts for developers if the software was not thought at the outset as a product line. Furthermore, these techniques can be conflicting with a company’s coding practices or external regulations. These concerns were the motivation for the industry–university collaboration described in this paper in which we developed a minimally intrusive coding technique based on tags. The approach was complemented with traceability from code to feature diagrams which were exploited for automated configuration. It is supported by a toolchain and is now in use in the partner company for the development of flight-grade satellite communication software libraries.     

Combining service-orientation and software product line engineering: A systematic mapping study

ContextService-Orientation (SO) is a rapidly emerging paradigm for the design and development of adaptive and dynamic software systems. Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE) has also gained attention as a promising and successful software reuse development paradigm over the last decade and proven to provide effective solutions to deal with managing the growing complexity of software systems.ObjectiveThis study aims at characterizing and identifying the existing research on employing and leveraging SO and SPLE.MethodWe conducted a systematic mapping study to identify and analyze related literature. We identified 81 primary studies, dated from 2000–2011 and classified them with respect to research focus, types of research and contribution.ResultThe mapping synthesizes the available evidence about combining the synergy points and integration of SO and SPLE. The analysis shows that the majority of studies focus on service variability modeling and adaptive systems by employing SPLE principles and approaches.In particular, SPLE approaches, especially feature-oriented approaches for variability modeling, have been applied to the design and development of service-oriented systems. While SO is employed in software product line contexts for the realization of product lines to reconcile the flexibility, scalability and dynamism in product derivations thereby creating dynamic software product lines.ConclusionOur study summarizes and characterizes the SO and SPLE topics researchers have investigated over the past decade and identifies promising research directions as due to the synergy generated by integrating methods and techniques from these two areas.