Call for Workshop Participation
Managing Variability for
Software Product Lines:
Working With Variability Mechanisms
21 August
2006
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Managing variability is the essence of software product line practice. Variability enters the product line picture through the need for different features, deployment on different platforms, the desire for different quality attributes, and the accommodation of different deployment scenarios. Eventually, every need for variability manifests itself in one way or another in the actual artifacts that populate a product line's core asset base.
"Variability mechanisms" is the name we give to the constructs that achieve variation at the artifact level. Catalogs of these mechanisms have been published, and they come in a bewildering variety. They may be
- requirements-level (such as the use of feature models, use case extensions, etc.)
- application-level (such as the use of configurators or program generators)
- architectural (such as plug-ins, or component replacement or replication)
- design-level (such as aspects)
- implementation-level constructs (such as inheritance or parameterization)
- runtime variation (such as reflective programming or conditionals)
Selecting the correct variability mechanism(s) can have a dramatic effect on the cost to deploy new products, react to evolutionary pressures, and in general maintain and grow the product line. But selection remains an ad hoc process in nearly all product line organizations.
This workshop is intended to fill the void between variability requirements visible to those who deal with features and other product-level concerns, and the variability mechanisms visible to creators and consumers of a product line's core assets. The goal of the workshop is to begin to codify a body of knowledge for the informed and purposeful selection of variability mechanisms to use in a software product line's core assets.
The workshop will be highly interactive and focused on making tangible progress towards answering specific questions relating to best practices in variability management. During the morning session there will be short presentations of selected papers. The bulk of the workshop will be reserved for discussions and overall conclusions. Participants will be assigned to groups that reflect specific topics. Then, the discussions will be carried out by raising and debating relevant questions related to every topic. Finally, a member of each group will present the conclusions. As pre-workshop activity the participants will be asked to read the accepted papers. After the workshop, the leader of teach working group will be asked to write a summary of the working group's discussion and (especially) its conclusions.
Topics of interest for the workshop include, but are not limited to: " Reasoning frameworks for variability selection " Factors that affect the selection of variability mechanisms " Cost models to enable reasoned selection of variability mechanisms " Variability mechanisms especially suited for non-software artifacts " Binding time issues from an strategic or economic viewpoint
Submission Instructions
Prospective participants are required to submit a 3-6 page position paper. All submissions will be reviewed by members of the program committee and the organizing committee for quality and relevance. Accepted papers will become part of the workshop proceedings and posted on the workshop's website. Three or four papers will be chosen to be presented during the workshop to foment discussion.
Submit your paper in PDF form to clements@sei.cmu.edu or Dirk.Muthig@iese.fraunhofer.de by July 7, 2006. Notifications will be sent by July 21, 2006.
Program committee:
- Michalis Anastasopoulos, Fraunhofer IESE
- Martin Becker, Fraunhofer IESE
- Jan Bosch, Nokia
Stan Jarzabek, National University of Singapore - Charles Krueger, BigLever Software, Inc.
- Juha Kuusela, Bosch
- Klaus Schmid, University of Hildesheim
- Rob van Ommering, Philips Research
