Prof. Dr. Christian Prehofer: Towards Feature-Oriented System Design and Modeling

In this presentation, we review the origins of feature composition and feature interactions, which first occurred as an explicit research problem in telecommunication software. We argue that feature interactions are pervasive in many areas of software development and a common source of modularity and quality problems. Then, we present more precise formalization of modularity and compositionality of features. We discuss when adding features is modular or “harmless” from a semantic or behavioral point of view. In particular, we focus on modularity and interaction for multiple feature compositions. A future challenge for feature-oriented software is the graphical modeling of features and feature interactions. As we aim to have modular composition for graphical models and to generate code from these graphical artifacts, it is important to have a precise semantics and clear refinement concepts. For this, we discuss how features and interactions can be represented by state-based specifications in a graphical way. Refinement concepts are presented which allow the flexible composition of features and interactions in statechart diagrams.