On the communication problem between domain engineering and application engineering

Abstract

Software Product Line Engineering enables customization and reuse during the development of software intensive systems. A typical product line process consists of a domain engineering process and several application engineering processes. We use two different heuristics to characterize artifact redundancies in a product line system: 1) artifacts should not be developed redundantly across domain engineering and application engineering and 2) no two application engineering teams should develop same artifacts redundantly. To provide a formal basis for the heuristics, we derive consistency equations by using mathematical notations of sets. We also use these consistency equations to describe artifact redundancies that occur due to conflicts-of-interests between domain engineering and application engineering. In particular, conflicts-of interests during product line scoping, product instantiation and product line evolution are covered. Furthermore, based on a literature review, we elicit several requirements to address the conflicts-of-interests and artifact redundancies.