On the Influence of Variabilities on the Application-Engineering Process of a Product Family

Product Families typically comprise a set of software assets, which offer the possibility to configure the product family to the needs of a specific application. The configuration process is driven by the variabilities (i.e., the variable requirements that were implemented into the software assets in the form of variation points). During application engineering, a developer selects a consistent set of variabilities; this set is used to instantiate the family assets to the needed functionality. This paper describes the influence of this configuration step on the application-engineering process of a product family. In addition, it identifies the requirements imposed on a configuration technique by the described product family application-engineering process.

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