Scalability of variability management: An example of industrial practice and some improvements

Abstract

Having set up reusable core assets for a Software Product Line (SPL), it is a common practice to apply Variation Techniques (VTs) to manage variant features. As each VT can handle only certain types of variability, multiple VTs are often employed, such as conditional compilation, configuration parameters or build tools. Our earlier study of an SPL at Fudan Wingsoft Ltd revealed potential scalability problems of multiple VTs. As a remedy to the above problems, in the follow-up study we replaced multiple VTs originally used in the Fudan Wingsoft product line, with a single, uniform VT of XML-based Variant Configuration Language (XVCL). This paper provides a proof-of-concept that commonly used variation techniques can indeed be superseded by a subset of XVCL, in a simple and natural way. We describe the essence of the XVCL solution, and evaluate the benefits and trade-offs involved in multiple VTs solution and single VT - XVCL solution.