Take a look at the new version of this page: [ beta version ]. Tell us what you think.

ABSTRACT

Traditional methods characterize a software product line's requirements using either functional or quality criteria. This appears to be inadequate to assess modularity, detect interferences, and analyze trade-offs. We take advantage of both symmetric and asymmetric views of aspects, and perform formal concept analysis to examine the functional and quality requirements of an evolving product line. The resulting concept lattice provides a rich notion which allows remarkable insights into the modularity and interactions of requirements. We formulate a number of problems that aspect-oriented product line requirements engineering should address, and present our solutions according to the concept lattice. We describe a case study applying our approach to analyze a mobile game product line's requirements, and review lessons learned.

REFERENCES

• 1: Vander Alves , Christa Schwanninger , Luciano Barbosa , Awais Rashid , Peter Sawyer , Paul Rayson , Christoph Pohl , Andreas Rummler, An Exploratory Study of Information Retrieval Techniques in Domain Analysis, Proceedings of the 2008 12th International Software Product Line Conference, p.67-76, September 08-12, 2008 [doi>10.1109/SPLC.2008.18]
• 2: Jennifer Baldwin , Yvonne Coady, Are patches cutting it?: structuring distribution within a JVM using aspects, Proceedings of the 2005 conference of the Centre for Advanced Studies on Collaborative research, p.29-39, October 17-20, 2005, Toranto, Ontario, Canada
• 3: Elisa Baniassad , Paul C. Clements , Joao Araujo , Ana Moreira , Awais Rashid , Bedir Tekinerdogan, Discovering Early Aspects, IEEE Software, v.23 n.1, p.61-70, January 2006 [doi>10.1109/MS.2006.8]
• 4: T. Bardo, D. Elliott, T. Krysak, M. Morgan, R. Shuey, and W. Tracz. Core: A product line success story. http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/1996/03/Core.asp.
• 5: Paul Clements , Rick Kazman, Software Architecture in Practices, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 2003
• 6: P. Becker and J. Correia. The ToscanaJ suite for implementing conceptual information systems. LNCS, 3626:324--348, 2005.
• 7: G. Birkhoff. Lattice Theory. Providence, RI.: Am. Math. Soc., 1940.
• 8: J. David Blaine , Jane Cleland-Huang, Software Quality Requirements: How to Balance Competing Priorities, IEEE Software, v.25 n.2, p.22-24, March 2008 [doi>10.1109/MS.2008.46]
• 9: Jan Bosch, Design and use of software architectures: adopting and evolving a product-line approach, ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., New York, NY, 2000
• 10: David Callele , Eric Neufeld , Kevin Schneider, Emotional Requirements in Video Games, Proceedings of the 14th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, p.292-295, September 11-15, 2006 [doi>10.1109/RE.2006.19]
• 11: Ruzanna Chitchyan , Awais Rashid , Paul Rayson , Robert Waters, Semantics-based composition for aspect-oriented requirements engineering, Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Aspect-oriented software development, March 12-16, 2007, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada [doi>10.1145/1218563.1218569]
• 12: Hojin Cho , Kwanwoo Lee , Kyo C. Kang, Feature Relation and Dependency Management: An Aspect-Oriented Approach, Proceedings of the 2008 12th International Software Product Line Conference, p.3-11, September 08-12, 2008 [doi>10.1109/SPLC.2008.23]
• 13: Software product lines: practices and patterns, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 2001
• 14: S. R. Faulk. Product-line requirements specification (PRS): an approach and case study. In Int'l Symp on Reqs Eng, pages 48--55, Toronto, Canada, August 2001.
• 15: Bernhard Ganter , C. Franzke , Rudolf Wille, Formal Concept Analysis: Mathematical Foundations, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., Secaucus, NJ, 1997
• 16: R. Godin, R. Missaoui, and H. Alaoui. Incremental concept formation algorithms based on Galois (concept) lattices. Computational Intelligence, 11(2):246--267, 1995.
• 17: IEEE Standards Board. IEEE recommended practice for software requirements specifications. 1998.
• 18: K. C. Kang, S. G. Cohen, J. A. Hess, W. E. Novak, and A. S. Peterson. Feature-oriented domain analysis (FODA) feasibility study. Technical Report CMU/SEI-90-TR-21, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, November 1990.
• 19: Kyo C. Kang , Sajoong Kim , Jaejoon Lee , Kijoo Kim , Euiseob Shin , Moonhang Huh, FORM: A feature-oriented reuse method with domain-specific reference architectures, Annals of Software Engineering, 5, p.143-168, 1998
• 20: Rick Kazman , Gregory Abowd , Len Bass , Paul Clements, Scenario-Based Analysis of Software Architecture, IEEE Software, v.13 n.6, p.47-55, November 1996 [doi>10.1109/52.542294]
• 21: G. Kiczales, J. Lamping, A. Menhdhekar, C. Maeda, C. Lopes, J.-M. Loingtier, and J. Irwin. Aspect-oriented programming. LNCS, 1241:220--242, 1997.
• 22: Charles W. Krueger, Easing the Transition to Software Mass Customization, Revised Papers from the 4th International Workshop on Software Product-Family Engineering, p.282-293, October 03-05, 2001
• 23: Juha Kuusela , Juha Savolainen, Requirements engineering for product families, Proceedings of the 22nd international conference on Software engineering, p.61-69, June 04-11, 2000, Limerick, Ireland [doi>10.1145/337180.337189]
• 24: Sotirios Liaskos , Alexei Lapouchnian , Yijun Yu , Eric Yu , John Mylopoulos, On Goal-based Variability Acquisition and Analysis, Proceedings of the 14th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, p.76-85, September 11-15, 2006 [doi>10.1109/RE.2006.45]
• 25: J. Liu, R. R. Lutz, and H. Rajan. The role of aspects in modelling product line variabilities. In Wkshp on Aspect-Oriented Product Line Eng, 2006.
• 26: Mikyeong Moon , Keunhyuk Yeom , Heung Seok Chae, An Approach to Developing Domain Requirements as a Core Asset Based on Commonality and Variability Analysis in a Product Line, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v.31 n.7, p.551-569, July 2005 [doi>10.1109/TSE.2005.76]
• 27: N. Niu and S. Easterbrook. Analysis of early aspects in requirements goal models: a concept-driven approach. Trans. AOSD, III:40--72, 2007.
• 28: Nan Niu , Steve Easterbrook, So, You Think You Know Others' Goals? A Repertory Grid Study, IEEE Software, v.24 n.2, p.53-61, March 2007 [doi>10.1109/MS.2007.52]
• 29: Nan Niu , Steve Easterbrook, Extracting and Modeling Product Line Functional Requirements, Proceedings of the 2008 16th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, p.155-164, September 08-12, 2008 [doi>10.1109/RE.2008.49]
• 30: Nan Niu , Steve Easterbrook, On-Demand Cluster Analysis for Product Line Functional Requirements, Proceedings of the 2008 12th International Software Product Line Conference, p.87-96, September 08-12, 2008 [doi>10.1109/SPLC.2008.11]
• 31: N. Niu, S. Easterbrook, and Y. Yu. A taxonomy of asymmetric requirements aspects. LNCS, 4765:1--18, 2007.
• 32: N. Niu, Y. Yu, B. González-Baixauli, N. Ernst, J. Leite, and J. Mylopoulos. Aspects across software life cycle: a goal-driven approach. Trans. AOSD, (to appear), 2008.
• 33: Bashar Nuseibeh , Steve Easterbrook, Requirements engineering: a roadmap, Proceedings of the Conference on The Future of Software Engineering, p.35-46, June 04-11, 2000, Limerick, Ireland [doi>10.1145/336512.336523]
• 34: Ipek Ozkaya , Len Bass , Raghvinder S. Sangwan , Robert L. Nord, Making Practical Use of Quality Attribute Information, IEEE Software, v.25 n.2, p.25-33, March 2008 [doi>10.1109/MS.2008.39]
• 35: Klaus Pohl , Günter Böckle , Frank J. van der Linden, Software Product Line Engineering: Foundations, Principles and Techniques, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., Secaucus, NJ, 2005
• 36: Rubén Prieto-Díaz, Domain analysis: an introduction, ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, v.15 n.2, p.47-54, April 1990 [doi>10.1145/382296.382703]
• 37: Awais Rashid , Ana Moreira , Joāo Araújo, Modularisation and composition of aspectual requirements, Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Aspect-oriented software development, p.11-20, March 17-21, 2003, Boston, Massachusetts [doi>10.1145/643603.643605]
• 38: D. Richards. Merging individual conceptual models of requirements. Reqs Eng Journal, 8(4):195--205, 2003.
• 39: Gerard Salton , Michael J. McGill, Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval, McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, NY, 1986
• 40: A. Sampaio, A. Rashid, R. Chitchyan, and P. Rayson. EA-Miner: towards automation in aspect-oriented requirements engineering. Trans. AOSD, III:4--39, 2007.
• 41: Gregor Snelting, Reengineering of configurations based on mathematical concept analysis, ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), v.5 n.2, p.146-189, April 1996 [doi>10.1145/227607.227613]
• 42: Peri Tarr , Harold Ossher , William Harrison , Stanley M. Sutton, Jr., N degrees of separation: multi-dimensional separation of concerns, Proceedings of the 21st international conference on Software engineering, p.107-119, May 16-22, 1999, Los Angeles, California, United States [doi>10.1145/302405.302457]
• 43: T. Tilley, R. Cole, P. Becker, and P. Eklund. A survey of formal concept analysis support for software engineering activities. LNCS, 3626:250--271, 2005.
• 44: Paolo Tonella, Using a Concept Lattice of Decomposition Slices for Program Understanding and Impact Analysis, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v.29 n.6, p.495-509, June 2003 [doi>10.1109/TSE.2003.1205178]
• 45: Paolo Tonella , Mariano Ceccato, Aspect Mining through the Formal Concept Analysis of Execution Traces, Proceedings of the 11th Working Conference on Reverse Engineering, p.112-121, November 08-12, 2004
• 46: K. van den Berg, J. M. Conejero, and J. Hernández. Analysis of crosscutting in early software development phases based on traceability. Trans. AOSD, III:73--104, 2007.
• 47: David M. Weiss , Chi Tau Robert Lai, Software product-line engineering: a family-based software development process, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1999
• 48: R. Yin. Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Sage Publications, 2003.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
        D.2.10 Design**

General Terms:
Design, Documentation

Keywords:
formal concept analysis, functional requirements profiles, product line engineering, quality attribute scenarios