SPLC 2009 - SPLC.net l Software Product Line Conferences

SPLC 2009 | The 13th International Software Product Line Conference
Pragmatic Strategies for Variability Management in Product Lines in Small- to
Medium-Size Companies
Stan Jarzabek, National University of Singapore, Singapore
If you deploy multiple product variants for a variety of customers, you are already in the
software product line (SPL) business. Most SPLs in small- to medium-size companies
evolve from a single successful product. Each new product variant is often developed by ad
hoc reuse—copy and modify—of source code files implementing existing products. As the
SPL practice matures, a common practice is to stabilize a product component architecture
and to use preprocessing, parameter configuration files, Ant, or annotations (Java/JEE) to
handle the impact of variant features at the detailed level of code. If you use these
techniques, you may be aware of problems that usually emerge in time: Features get
complicated and inclusion of one feature into a custom product must be properly
coordinated with modifications of yet other features; core reusable components become
heavily instrumented with variation points and complex to work with.
If the above picture reflects your experience, you may find this tutorial useful. We’ll review
techniques commonly employed for SPL variability management and their strengths and
pitfalls. In the second part of the tutorial, we’ll examine the XML-based Variant
Configuration Language (XVCL) variation mechanism that exercises the total control over
SPL variability, from architecture, to component configuration, to any detail of code (e.g.,
variations at the source statement, expression, or keyword level). XVCL streamlines and
automates customizations involved in implementation of selected variant features into
custom products, from component reconfiguration to detailed customizations of component
code. The approach replaces the need for multiple variation mechanisms and avoids the
problems of digging out feature customization and reuse information from SCM
repositories. It complements conventional architecture-centric, component-based design for
reuse and works with any conventional programming language and/or platform such as
JEE, .NET, Ruby on Rails, or PHP.
In the tutorial, we discuss industrial case studies of product lines with XVCL.
Presenter Biographies:
Stan Jarzabek is an associate professor at the Department of Computer Science, School of
Computing, National University of Singapore. He spent 12 years of his professional career
in industry and 20 years in academia. Stan is interested in all aspects of software design, in
particular, techniques for design of adaptable, easy-to-change (high-variability) software,
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