Publikationen aus dem Jahr 2009

Interactive Techniques to Support the
Conguration of Complex Feature Models

Goetz Botterweck¹ and Denny Schneeweiss² and Andreas Pleuss¹

1 Lero, University of Limerick, Ireland,
{goetz.botterweck|andreas.pleuss}@lero.ie

2 BTU Cottbus, Germany,
denny.schneeweiss@tu-cottbus.de

Abstract. Whenever a software engineer derives a product from a product line, he has to resolve variability by making conguration decisions. This conguration process can become rather complex because of dependencies within the variability model and knock-on effects and dependencies in other related artefacts. Because of the limited cognitive capacity of the human engineer, this complexity limits the ability of handling product lines with large conguration spaces. To address this problem we focus on techniques that support the interactive conguration of larger feature models, including (1) visual interaction with a formal reasoning engine, (2) visual representation of multiple interrelated hierarchies, (3) indicators for conguration progress and (4) ltering of visible nodes. The concepts are demonstrated within S2T2 Congurator, an interactive feature conguration tool. The techniques are discussed and evaluated with feature models, however, we believe they can be generalised to other models that describe conguration choices, e.g., variability models and decision models.

Abstract 2009[02]