On the design and development of program families

1
On the design and development of program families

• Presented by
• M. Deng and J. Zhang
• 4/15/2002

CSE870 Advanced Software Engineering, Spring 2002
2
Overview

• Objective
• Definition of program families
• A set of programs
• First common features of these programs
• Then variation of each program
• Example Microsoft Office Family
• Three techniques
• Traditional method Sequential development method
• Two new methods
• Stepwise refinement method
• Specification of information hiding modules method

Parnas76 David Parnas, On the design and
development of program families, IEEE
Transactions on Software Engineering, SE-2(1),
1-9, 1976.
3
Overview (contd)

• Technique Overview
• Sequential Method
• Features
• Disadvantages

4
Overview (contd)

• Stepwise Method Vs. Specification Method
• Features
• Combination

5
Impact

• Product line
• Definition a group of products that share a set
  of commonalities that meet the requirements of
  the market
• CMU/SEI a Framework of Software Product Line
  Practice
• CMU/SEI 1st Software Product Line Conference
  (SPLC1) in 2000
• Information hiding design principle in
  Object-Oriented programming languages
• And so on

6
Related 1 Commonality Analysis

• Objective
• To identify the common features and variations
  among family members
• Technique Overview
• FAST (Family-oriented Abstraction, Specification
  and Translation) process
• An early step of the FAST process
• Participants
• Moderator, recorder, family analysis experts

Weiss98 David Weiss, Commonality Analysis A
Systematic Process for Defining Families, in 2nd
International Workshop on Development and
Evolution of Software Architectures for Product
Families, February 1998.
7
Related 1 (contd)

• Result Commonality Analysis Document
• Form to hold a series of meetings
• Five stages
• Prepare
• Plan
• Analyze central part
• Quantify
• Review
• Applicability
• Has been practiced in Lucent Technologies
• How it extends Parnas work?
• Provide a process

8
Related 2 Adaptable Components

• Objective
• One component represents a family of components
• Technique Overview
• An adaptable component has a group of parameters
  of adaptability

Campbell99 Grady Campbell, Adaptable
Components, in Proceeding of 21st International
Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE99), ACM,
685-686, 1999.
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Related 2 (contd)

• Two models of reuse
• Usual reuse model
• Select from a library of components
• Customize and then construct a new component
• Time-consuming, error-prone
• Adaptable component based reuse model
• Select from the name of adaptable component
• Make the decisions of parameters
• How it extends Parnas work?
• A component family

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Related 3 Combining Product Line Engineering
with Options Thinking

• Objective
• To introduce an appropriate economic model to
  justify the use of product line approach
• Technique Overview
• Product line approach needs more initial
  investment
• The DCF Model can be used to justify the use of
  product line in cell phone companies
• The DCF is not suitable to justify product line
  approach in an evolutionary product
• The BSOP Model is a Model used in stock market to
  value the option. It is more suitable to justify
  an evolutionary product

Geppert01 Birgit Geppert and Frank Roessler,
Combining Product Line Engineering with Options
Thinking, in Proceedings of Product Line
Engineering The Early Steps (PLEES01),
September 2001.
11
(No Transcript)
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Related 3 (contd)

• How it extends Parnas work
• Product line is an extension of program family
• This work introduces an economic model to justify
  the use of the product line

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Uncited Multi-Staged Scoping for Software
Product Lines

• Objective
• To propose a scoping method for the product line
  approach
• Technique Overview
• Why we need scoping?
• What requirements a sound scoping method should
  meet?
• Three components of the proposed scoping method
• Product line mapping, domain based scoping,
  feature based scoping

Schmid00 Klaus Schmid, Multi-Staged Scoping
for Software Product Lines, in Proceedings of
Software Product Lines Economics, Architecture,
and Implications, June 2000.
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Why it should have cited the paper

• This paper should have cited Parnas paper for
  the same reason as the previous paper
• Product line is a industrial interpretation of
  program family
• This paper proposes a scoping method in product
  line

15
References

• D. Parnas, On the design and development of
  program families, IEEE Transactions on Software
  Engineering, SE-2(1), 1-9, 1976.
• http//www.sei.cmu.edu/plp/product_line_overview.h
  tml.
• http//www.sei.cmu.edu/plp/conf/SPLC.html.
• http//www.sei.cmu.edu/plp/framework.html.
• D. Weiss, Commonality Analysis A Systematic
  Process for Defining Families, in 2nd
  International Workshop on Development and
  Evolution of Software Architectures for Product
  Families, February 1998.
• G. Campbell, Adaptable Components, in
  Proceeding of 21st International Conference on
  Software Engineering (ICSE99), ACM, 685-686,
  1999.

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References

• B. Geppert and F. Roessler, Combining Product
  Line Engineering with Options Thinking, in
  Proceedings of Product Line Engineering The
  Early Steps (PLEES01), September 2001.
• K. Schmid, Multi-Staged Scoping for Software
  Product Lines, in Proceedings of Software
  Product Lines Economics, Architecture, and
  Implications, June 2000.