Handling Variability in Model Transformations and Generators

Software product line engineering aims to reduce development time, effort, cost, and complexity by taking advantage of the commonality within a portfolio of similar products. The effectiveness of a software product line approach directly depends on how well feature variability within the portfolio is implemented and managed throughout the development lifecycle, from early analysis through maintenance and evolution. Using DSLs and AO to implement product lines can yield significant advantages, since the variabilities can be implemented in higher level, less detailed models. This paper illustrates how variabilities can be implemented in model-to-model transformations and code generators. The backbone of the presented approach is to use aspect-oriented techniques for transformations and generators. These techniques are important ingredients for the model-driven product line engineering approach presented in [SPLC Paper].