以特徵為導向的統一產品線式軟體發展程序

Abstract

軟體再利用技術已是目前公認最能夠有效提升軟體產能及品質之軟體工程技術，典型應用軟體再利用技術的方式是屬於被動式的再利用，再利用之軟體產物以軟體元件的型式集中於一元件庫中，開發者從元件庫中尋找合用的軟體元件，然而這類被動式的再利用方式，再利用者只能從前人累積的可再利用元件挑選適合的進行再利用，然則一來再利用者所需要的的元件並不一定存在，而且其功能也難以完全符合再利用者的需求，因此效果有限。另一類的方式即是針對未來即將開發的各類軟體，建立再利用的計畫，也就是針對這些軟體建立可再利用的軟體需求，軟體架構，以及軟體元件等，以整合由上到下的方式，有效的規劃軟體公司內部可再利用資源，此即所謂產品線(Product-Line)的軟體再利用，目前，產品線軟體開發已經成為目前軟體工程中重要的研究。 然而現有以產品線為理念的軟體發展方法，仍停留在分析產品線內產品的共同性與差異性，以及產品特徵與軟體架構的關係，但沒有提供完整的軟體發展流程做為產品線發展的指引，所以在本研究中，我們將結合目前最廣為使用的軟體發展程序Rational Unified Process與目前公認最有效來表示產品線的特色的特徵模型的想法，提出以特徵為導向的統一產品線式(UFOPL)軟體發展程序的發展程序。UFOPL主要分兩個階段。 (1) 第一階段主要工作為領域工程階段，稱為UFOPL_1。在於建立一個產品線的參考模型，包括描述產品線的特徵模型與其他相關軟體產物。參考模型的主要目的在於描述產品線上，經由UFOPL發展程序後得到的軟體產物與特徵模型間的關係。 (2) 第二階段主要工作為應用工程階段，稱為UFOPL_2。在產品線上當版本變化時，發展者可以再利用產品線參考模型依循完整的發展程序迅速的產生新產品。 藉由這套程序，產品線的領域工程師可以系統化的方式發展產品線的參考模型，而且產品工程師也可以依據此一包含完整軟體產物的參考模型，快速的發展新的產品。另外，為了能讓同一專案甚或不同專案底下的成員，能迅速建立共識，一同開發專案產品。所以我們設計一個專案網頁輔助工具，希望透過這樣的輔助工具，提供讓專案人員溝通彼此的擁有的資訊，包含儲存產品線的參考模型，分析與標明產品線的特徵，分析新產品與現有產品線的共同性與差異性，以及線上的程序輔助。

It has been convinced that software reuse is the most promising approach to improving software productivity and quality. Conventional software reuse is pessimistic; that is, reusable software artifacts are stored in a repository in terms of software components, and developers explore their required component from the repository. With this paradigm, reusers can only reuse the existing components developed by others, but they may either find components not satisfying their requirement completely or none. This will confront developers to reuse. Another reuse paradigm is to systematically initiate the reuse program for the future products. Developers plan and develop the components of software requirement, software architecture and other types for a produce line when the product line is initiated. These components are potentially reused for all future products within the product line. Due to its effectiveness, product-line development has been recognized as an promising area in software engineering. Existing product-line research focus on the analysis on the commonality and variation of product lines and their relation to software architecture, but no complete development process available for the whole software life cycle. In this research, we will integrate Rational Unified Process, a widely used process and the feature model, a widely used model for product-line characteristics. The result is a Unified Feature-Oriented Product Line (UFOPL) development process. This process is separated into two phases: (1) The first phase is domain engineering to build a product-line reference model including its feature model, related software artifacts and their relations. The associated process is UFOPL_1. (2) The second phase is application engineering, UFOPL_2. When a new version for the product line is proposed, developers can reuse the product-line reference model, follow the complete software development process, and generate new product efficiently. With this process, domain engineer in product line can systematically develop the product-line reference model; product engineer can also reuse it including the complete software artifact to develop new product quickly. Besides, in order to build the common understanding among project engineers to develop product together, we have designed a web-based supporting tool. This tool helps the project engineer in the following ways: store the product line reference model completely, ease the definition and analysis of the feature of product line, help analyze the commonality and variation of new product with respect to the product line, and provide the on-line process guideline.