Kwanwoo Lee

Concepts and Guidelines of Feature Modeling for Product Line Software Engineering

Product line software engineering (PLSE) is an emerging software engineering paradigm, which guides organizations toward the development of products from core assets rather than the development of products one by one from scratch. In order to develop highly reusable core assets, PLSE must have the ability to exploit commonality and manage variability among products from a domain perspective. Feature modeling is one of the most popular domain analysis techniques, which analyzes commonality and variability in a domain to develop highly reusable core assets for a product line. Various attempts have been made to extend and apply it to the development of software product lines. However, feature modeling can be difficult and time-consuming without a precise understanding of the goals of feature modeling and the aid of practical guidelines. In this paper, we clarify the concept of features and the goals of feature modeling, and provide practical guidelines for successful product line software engineering. The authors have extensively used feature modeling in several industrial product line projects and the guidelines described in this paper are based on these experiences.

Featured-based approach to object-oriented engineering of applications for reuse

Object-oriented technology is gaining popularity among software engineers with the goal of building reusable and adaptable software. Unfortunately, however, most methods introduced so far are not domain-oriented and do not address the issue of reuse directly. For these methods, software reuse is not the primary goal; it is only a by-product. The feature-oriented reuse method, FORM, is extended in this paper for improving the object-oriented engineering of applications for reuse. FORM concentrates on analyzing and modeling commonalities and differences in the applications of a given domain in terms of capability, operating environment, domain technology, and implementation technique features. These features are used to systematically derive objects that are tied to the features, and to develop reusable and adaptable domain architectures. We found that FORM facilitates analysis of variability (and commonality) of software before engineering and implementation start, and with this understanding, adaptability and reusability can be built into software. Feature modeling has been found to be an effective method for identifying and modeling reusable objects. Copyright

Feature-oriented engineering of PBX software for adaptability and reusability

Incorporating a high level of adaptability and reusability into software is one challenge that all software engineers face. PBX (Private Branch Exchange) is one such system that requires a high level of adaptability and reusability because of rapidly expanding service features, ever changing communication technology, continuously evolving standards and diverse communication laws and standards in different countries. The software engineering community has made various efforts to address the problem of enhancing software adaptability and reusability. As a result, many programming concepts, such as information hiding, encapsulation, object orientation, abstract data type and modularization, have been developed. Although adequate application of these principles requires the domain or program family perspective, most methods, so far, have been oriented toward developing a single application. FORM (Feature‐Oriented Reuse Method), the domain‐based software reuse method applied in this paper, concentrates on analyzing and modeling commonalities and differences in applications of a given domain and using the analysis results to develop domain‐oriented architectures and software components. The model that captures commonalities and differences is called the ‘feature model’ and it is used for both the engineering of reusable domain artifacts and the development of actual application software with reusable artifacts. We found that FORM facilitates analysis of variability, as well as commonality, of software before the start of engineering and implementation. With this understanding, adaptability and reusability can be built into software. Also, feature modeling has been found to be an effective method for identifying objects. Copyright

Using a Marketing and Product Plan as a Key Driver for Product Line Asset Development

The product line engineering paradigm has emerged recently to address the need to minimize the development cost and the time to market in this highly competitive global market. Product line development consists of product line asset development and product development using the assets. Product line requirements are essential inputs to product line asset development. These inputs, although critical, are not sufficient to develop product line assets. A marketing and product plan, which includes plans on what features are to be packaged in products, how these features will be delivered to customers (e.g., feature binding time), and how the products will evolve in the future, also drives product line asset development; thus this paper explores design issues from the marketing perspective and presents key design drivers that are tightly coupled with the marketing strategy. An elevator control software example is used to illustrate how product line asset development is related to marketing and product plans.

Domain-Oriented Engineering of Elevator Control Software

Development and maintenance of embedded control software has been a difficult challenge for the manufacturing industry because of the diversity of customers’ needs, rapidly changing market requirements, and the quick response of market competition. LG Industrial Systems Co. Ltd. (LGIS), one of Korea’s leading suppliers of elevator control systems, has been faced with the same difficulty in the development and maintenance of elevator control software (ECS). To help LGIS we have adopted a domain-oriented approach for reuse, and verification and validation technology for improving software quality. We have found that we can reduce maintenance costs drastically as the software is developed by utilizing reusable and adaptable components that can easily accommodate contextual as well as requirement changes, and have verified and validated ECS in the early phase of development.

Feature-oriented engineering of PBX software

PBX (private branch exchange) systems are evolving rapidly due to fast expanding services, ever-changing communication technology, continuously evolving standards, and diverse communication laws and standards in different countries. As new features are added continuously, the detection of feature interaction problems early in the development lifecycle and the resolution of these problems through adaptable software are difficult challenges which all PBX software engineers face. A feature-oriented reuse method (FORM), introduced in this paper, concentrates on analyzing and modeling commonalities and differences in applications of a given domain in terms of features. The analysis results are then used for both the analysis of feature interactions and the engineering of domain-oriented software with a high level of adaptability (and reusability). We found that FORM facilitates the analysis of feature interactions and the variability (and commonality) of software before engineering and implementation begin. By understanding the variability, adaptability and reusability could be built into the software. The software architecture and modules are implemented based on information hiding and encapsulation principles and could easily accommodate new features that have not been considered in the initial feature analysis.