03/06/2020 – Talk: “Variability Management In Software Product Lines” By Christoph Seidl

Christoph Seidl will give a talk about variability management in Software Product Lines (SPLs). Details below.

SPEAKER

Christoph Seidl, Assistant Professor.

TITLE

Variability Management in Software Product Lines (SPLs)

ABSTRACT

Many of today’s systems are faced with significant heterogeneity in utilized hardware, platforms, frameworks, libraries and, also, configuration options provided to adapt a system depending on available resources, technologies and customer preferences. Software engineering has to deal with this heterogeneity in the construction of adequate software systems by managing variability.

Variability is the existence of an artifact in different shapes at the same time and can affect source code, models, or any other development artifact. Instead of building individual software systems for each possible configuration resulting from the variability inherent to a system, similarities of the respective implementation artifacts can be exploited for more efficient construction, quality assurance and maintenance within an entire family of software systems, e.g., by address slightly differing requirements through only exchanging a portion of a realization artifact while maintaining its majority.

A Software Product Line (SPL) is a systematic approach to large-scale reuse in closely-related configurable software systems within a software family with the goal of managing variability effectively and efficiently. The presentation gives a brief overview of concepts and terminology in SPL engineering as an introduction to the topic.