Some metrics to evaluate reusability of software product line architecture (original) (raw)

Quality and Value Analysis of Software Product Line Architectures

Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Software and Data Technologies Special Session on Applications in Banking and Finance, 2008

The concern of a software product line architecture systematic analysis is how to take better advantage of views and analyze value and quality attributes in an organized and repetitive way. In this approach architecture descriptions evolve from the conceptual level to a more concrete level. Architecture analysis at the conceptual level provides a knowledge base of the domain architecture so as to perform a more comprehensive analysis of quality attributes at the concrete level description. Concrete architecture descriptions permit more relevant and accurate scenario-based analysis results for the development of quality attributes such as portability and adaptability.

The software product line architecture: An empirical investigation of key process activities

Information and Software Technology, 2008

Software architecture has been a key area of concern in software industry due to its profound impact on the productivity and quality of software products. This is even more crucial in case of software product line, because it deals with the development of a line of products sharing common architecture and having controlled variability. The main contributions of this paper is to increase the understanding of the influence of key software product line architecture process activities on the overall performance of software product line by conducting a comprehensive empirical investigation covering a broad range of organizations currently involved in the business of software product lines. This is the first study to empirically investigate and demonstrate the relationships between some of the software product line architecture process activities and the overall software product line performance of an organization at the best of our knowledge. The results of this investigation provide empirical evidence that software product line architecture process activities play a significant role in successfully developing and managing a software product line.

Workshop on Variability in Software Product Line Architectures (VARI-ARCH 2010)

2010

A software product line is a collection of similar software systems that are constructed from a shared set of assets in a prescribed way. Software product lines are valued by industry as they increase productivity and enable strategic, planned reuse of assets among multiple products. The product line architecture is key to the success of a software product line. In contrast to single system architectures, a product line architecture is designed to underpin multiple systems.

Product-Line Architecture: New Issues for Evaluation

2005

In the product-line context, where a lack or mismatch in a quality attribute is potentially replicated among all products, product-line evaluation could detect problems before concrete products are developed. The life span of a software product-line architecture is much longer than the one of an ordinary software product and it serves as a basis for a set of related systems. Therefore, the product-line architecture should be adaptable to evolution as well as support a number of different products. All these characteristics set new requirements to the product-line architecture evaluation. This paper highlights the new issues that can arise when evaluating a product-line architecture versus evaluating a single-system architecture, including classifications of relevant attributes in product-line architecture evaluation, new evaluation moments and techniques. These issues are used as components of a framework to survey product-line architecture evaluation methods and metrics.

Extending ATAM to assess product line architecture

2008 8th IEEE International Conference on Computer and Information Technology, 2008

Software architecture is a core asset for any organization that develops software-intensive systems. Unsuitable architecture can precipitate disaster because the architecture determines the structure of the project. To prevent this issue, we have to evaluate software architecture. Current evaluation methods focus on single product architecture, not product line architectures and hardly considered the characteristics of product lines, such as variation points. To resolve this issue, we need to create a new evaluation method or extend current architecture evaluation methods to evaluate software product line architecture. This paper will focus on the latter and provide several methods to evaluate product line architecture. The first extended method identifies four common quality attributes of the product line architecture. The second one figures out architecture views. The third develops tags to indicate the variation points, and the last one repeats ATAM phases to validate the product architecture using Extended ATAM.

Towards a Software Product Line Assessment Framework

2010

Empirical studies are important to evaluate new techniques, methodologies, tools and processes proposed. While the diversity of Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE) approaches is increasingly growing, empirical studies assessing them are still limited, thereby hampering the technology transfer of the field. One of the key reasons for this problem is the lack of support for designing studies or benchmarks to be an assessment basis to the SPLE community. This position paper proposes a framework for benchmarking SPLE efforts, guiding the identification and classification of candidate benchmark applications. Such applications should be used by the evaluation studies to assess new techniques, methodologies, tools and processes proposed. The framework defines attributes to classify and therefore evaluate, product line applications and their releases, which is demanded to also consider product line evolution.