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A code tagging approach to software product line development

An application to satellite communication libraries

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Abstract

Software product line engineering seeks to systematise reuse when developing families of similar software systems so as to minimise development time, cost and defects. To realise variability at the code level, product line methods classically advocate usage of inheritance, components, frameworks, aspects or generative techniques. However, these might require unaffordable paradigm shifts for developers if the software was not thought at the outset as a product line. Furthermore, these techniques can be conflicting with a company’s coding practices or external regulations. These concerns were the motivation for the industry–university collaboration described in this paper in which we developed a minimally intrusive coding technique based on tags. The approach was complemented with traceability from code to feature diagrams which were exploited for automated configuration. It is supported by a toolchain and is now in use in the partner company for the development of flight-grade satellite communication software libraries.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. PReCISE Research Centre, University of Namur, Rue Grandgagnage 21, 5000, Namur, Belgium

    Patrick Heymans, Quentin Boucher & Andreas Classen

  2. INRIA Lille-Nord Europe, Université Lille 1, LIFL, CNRS, Parc scientifique de la Haute Borne, Avenue Halley 40, 59650, Villeneuve d’Ascq, France

    Patrick Heymans

  3. Spacebel S.A., Liège Science Park, Rue des Chasseurs Ardennais 6, 4031, Angleur, Belgium

    Arnaud Bourdoux & Laurent Demonceau

Authors
  1. Patrick Heymans
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  2. Quentin Boucher
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  3. Andreas Classen
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  4. Arnaud Bourdoux
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  5. Laurent Demonceau
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Correspondence to Quentin Boucher.

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This paper was extended version of [9].

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Heymans, P., Boucher, Q., Classen, A. et al. A code tagging approach to software product line development. Int J Softw Tools Technol Transfer 14, 553–566 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10009-012-0242-1

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