Emergent Interfaces for Feature Modularization

Developers frequently introduce errors into software systems when they fail to recognise module dependencies.

Using forty-three software families and Software Product Lines (SPLs), where the majority are commonly used in industrial practice, the authors reports on the feature modularization problem and provides a study of how often it may occur in practice. To solve the problem they present the concept of emergent feature modularization which aims to establish contracts between features to prevent developers from breaking other features when performing a maintenance task.

Discusses the feature modularization problem and presents a study on how frequently it may occur in practice Introduces the concept of Emergent Interfaces to improve feature modularization Provides a prototype tool Emergo to support developers with Emergent Interfaces Presents an empirical study using proxy metrics to evaluate the potential of Emergent Interfaces to reduce maintenance effort Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Inhalt

Introduction.- Software Families, Software Products and Dataflow Analysis.- Feature Dependencies.- Emergent Feature Modularization.- Evaluation.- Related Works.- Concluding Remarks.