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PAxSPL: A Framework for Aiding SPL Reengineering Planning

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Handbook of Re-Engineering Software Intensive Systems into Software Product Lines

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Abstract

Among the approaches to develop Software Product Lines (SPL), the extractive approach is adopted when the company has a set of similar systems that are analyzed to extract, categorize, and group their features throughout the SPL reengineering process. However, SPL reengineering scenarios differ due to different variables, such as the experience of the developers and product portfolios. Due to this diversity of options, rigorous planning of the reengineering process is critical to perform SPL reengineering. To create a planning framework to allow customization, we sought in the literature and analyzed SPL reengineering processes. We defined the Prepare, Assemble, and Execute Framework for SPL Reengineering (PAxSPL). PAxSPL aids the SPL reengineering planning by providing flexibility concerning artifacts, strategies, and techniques used for feature retrieval. This flexibility is given by allowing the choice and combination of different techniques for feature retrieval based on company related information. We conducted a case study to collect exploratory evidence about PAxSPL application into ten different products, generated from an organization’s real development environment. The results indicated that our proposal helps in the assembly of a feature retrieval process according to user’s needs. Furthermore, we collected evidence about the reusability of SPL assets when re-executing the reengineering process in a similar scenario.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this chapter, we consider an organizational scenario to be “a certain group of engineers, having a set of system variants, knowing a specific set of techniques for analyzing features from a determined set of artifacts”.

  2. 2.

    PAxSPL is presented by using the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), all the figures presented in this section related with PAxSPL activities were created using BPMN 2.0 https://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/2.0/.

  3. 3.

    https://github.com/HestiaProject/PAxSPL/wiki/Guidelines.

  4. 4.

    Dynamic analysis techniques are not being considered in this version of PAxSPL and will be included in future work.

  5. 5.

    All artifacts are available at our case study repository: https://github.com/HestiaProject/PAxSPL/tree/master/process/case%20study.

  6. 6.

    http://conexp.sourceforge.net/.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Supporting Research in the State of Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ), under the PDR-10 program, grant 202073/2020. This work was partially supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) grant RGPIN-2017-05421.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Software Systems Engineering - Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz, Austria

    Luciano Marchezan

  2. Laboratory of Empirical Studies in Software Engineering - Federal University of Pampa, Alegrete, Brazil

    Elder Rodrigues, João Carbonell, Maicon Bernardino & Fábio Paulo Basso

  3. Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Wesley K. G. Assunção

  4. Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Linz, Austria

    Wesley K. G. Assunção

Authors
  1. Luciano Marchezan
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  2. Elder Rodrigues
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  3. João Carbonell
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  4. Maicon Bernardino
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  5. Fábio Paulo Basso
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  6. Wesley K. G. Assunção
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Luciano Marchezan or Wesley K. G. Assunção .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. École de Technologie Supérieure, Universite du Québec, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Roberto E. Lopez-Herrejon

  2. Tecnalia, Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Derio, Spain

    Jabier Martinez

  3. Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Linz, Austria

    Wesley Klewerton Guez Assunção

  4. Sorbonne Universités & CNRS-LIP6, Paris, Paris, France

    Tewfik Ziadi

  5. IRISA-Inria, Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) & University of Rennes 1, Rennes, France

    Mathieu Acher

  6. Departamento de Informática, Federal University of Parana (UFPR), Curitiba, Brazil

    Silvia Vergilio

Appendix

Appendix

1.1 Survey 1 Questions: Participants Information

  1. 1.

    How many times have you participated in a case study?

  2. 2.

    How many times have you performed a SPL re-engineering process before?

  3. 3.

    Regarding your technical knowledge, please check the following options: ()SPL () Re-engineering () SPL Re-engineering () Feature Model () Feature Diagrams ()Feature Retrieval Techniques

  4. 4.

    How is the variability of products being performed in this organization?

1.2 Survey 2 Questions: Answered After Phase 1

  1. 1.

    Describe any difficulty that you may had during PAxSPL execution.

  2. 2.

    How helpful were PAxSPL’s guidelines? Not Much Helpful 1–5 Very Helpful

  3. 3.

    In which activities did you spend more time during PAxSPL execution?

  4. 4.

    Which artifacts were more used during the reengineering?

  5. 5.

    What artifacts were more important during PAxSPL execution?

  6. 6.

    What changes would you recommend for PAxSPL?

1.3 Survey 3 Questions: Answered After Phase 2

  1. 1.

    What were the main difficulties to re-apply PAxSPL?

  2. 2.

    What were the main benefits to re-apply PAxSPL?

  3. 3.

    In which activities did you spend more time during PAxSPL re-execution?

  4. 4.

    How many artifacts from the first execution the team could reuse?

  5. 5.

    How many artifacts from the first execution the team could reuse without modification?

  6. 6.

    How helpful were PAxSPL’s guidelines? Not Much Helpful 1–5 Very Helpful

  7. 7.

    What artifacts were more important during PAxSPL re-execution?

  8. 8.

    What changes would you recommend for PAxSPL?

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Marchezan, L., Rodrigues, E., Carbonell, J., Bernardino, M., Basso, F.P., Assunção, W.K.G. (2023). PAxSPL: A Framework for Aiding SPL Reengineering Planning. In: Lopez-Herrejon, R.E., Martinez, J., Guez Assunção, W.K., Ziadi, T., Acher, M., Vergilio, S. (eds) Handbook of Re-Engineering Software Intensive Systems into Software Product Lines. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11686-5_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11686-5_13

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