Variability Design

Designing the variability of the Software Product Line (SPL) to gain from a consolidation is one of the major parts supported by the KoPL project. The variability design describes the location of variability, the available variants as part of the SPL code base as well as the characteristics of each variation point.

Designing the SPL's variability during a consolidation starts with a fine grained Variation Point Model automatically initialized from the differences detected between the copies. The SPLevo tooling as part of the KoPL tool chain allows to provide the copies' code bases and automatically detect the differences and derive this initial variation point model.

Next, the SPLevo tooling allows to iteratively design the variability. To do this, a design editor is provided allowing to

• manually adapt the model
• use automated analysis and design recommendations
• access the code and visualize the copy specifics

The SPLevo Variability Design Editor provides different views and tools to handle this:

• A VPM Explorer
• A Variability Analysis Wizard
• A Refinement Browser
• A Feature Outline
• A Variability Properties View

The links above provide further details about the individual editor components as well as their usage.