TY - GEN
T1 - True Variability Shining Through Taxonomy Mining
AU - König, Christoph
AU - Rosiak, Kamil
AU - Cleophas, Loek
AU - Schaefer, Ina
PY - 2023/8/28
Y1 - 2023/8/28
N2 - Software variants of a Software Product Line (SPL) consist of a set of artifacts specified by features. Variability models document the valid relationships between features and their mapping to artifacts. However, research has shown inconsistencies between the variability of variants in features and artifacts, with negative effects on system safety and development effort. To analyze this mismatch in variability, the causal relationships between features, artifacts, and variants must be uncovered, which has only been addressed to a limited extent. In this paper, we propose taxonomy graphs as novel variability models that reflect the composition of variants from artifacts and features, making mismatches in variability explicit. Our evaluation with two SPL case studies demonstrates the usefulness of our variability model and shows that mismatches in variability can vary significantly in detail and severity.
AB - Software variants of a Software Product Line (SPL) consist of a set of artifacts specified by features. Variability models document the valid relationships between features and their mapping to artifacts. However, research has shown inconsistencies between the variability of variants in features and artifacts, with negative effects on system safety and development effort. To analyze this mismatch in variability, the causal relationships between features, artifacts, and variants must be uncovered, which has only been addressed to a limited extent. In this paper, we propose taxonomy graphs as novel variability models that reflect the composition of variants from artifacts and features, making mismatches in variability explicit. Our evaluation with two SPL case studies demonstrates the usefulness of our variability model and shows that mismatches in variability can vary significantly in detail and severity.
KW - Software Product Lines
KW - Taxonomy
KW - Variability Modeling
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85175975078
U2 - 10.1145/3579027.3608989
DO - 10.1145/3579027.3608989
M3 - Conference contribution
T3 - ACM International Conference Proceeding Series
SP - 182
EP - 193
BT - 27th ACM International Systems and Software Product Line Conference, SPLC 2023 - Proceedings
A2 - Arcaini, Paolo
A2 - ter Beek, Maurice H.
A2 - Perrouin, Gilles
A2 - Reinhartz-Berger, Iris
A2 - Luaces, Miguel R.
A2 - Schwanninger, Christa
A2 - Ali, Shaukat
A2 - Varshosaz, Mahsa
A2 - Gargantini, Angelo
A2 - Gnesi, Stefania
A2 - Lochau, Malte
A2 - Semini, Laura
A2 - Washizaki, Hironori
PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.
CY - New York
T2 - 27th ACM International Systems and Software Product Line Conference, SPLC 2023
Y2 - 28 August 2023 through 1 September 2023
ER -