Dirk Muthig

Bio: Dirk Muthig is an academic researcher from Lufthansa Systems. The author has contributed to research in topics: Software product line & Software development. The author has an hindex of 26, co-authored 64 publications receiving 2611 citations. Previous affiliations of Dirk Muthig include Fraunhofer Society.

Component-Based Product Line Engineering with UML

Abstract: Component-based development promises to revolutionize the way in which software is developed and maintained. However, contemporary component technologies, such as COM+/.NET, EJB/J2EE and CORBA, only support components in the final, implementation-oriented stages of development, leaving the earlier stages of analysis and design to be organized in largely traditional, non-component oriented ways. This book describes the KobrA method, which supports a model-driven, UML-based representation of components, and a product line approach to their development and evolution. This enables the benefits of component-based development to be realized throughout the software life-cycle, and allows the reusability of components to be significantly enhanced.

PuLSE: a methodology to develop software product lines

Abstract: Software product lines have recently been introduced as one of the most promising advances for efficient software development. Yet upon close examination, there are few guidelines or methodologies available to develop and deploy product lines beyond existing domain engineering approaches. The latter have had mixed success within commercial enterprises because of their deployment complexity, lack of customizability, and especially their misplaced focus, that is on domains as opposed to products. To tackle these problems we developed the PuLSETM (Product Line Software Engineering) methodology for the purpose of enabling the conception and deployment of software product lines within a large variety of enterprise contexts. This is achieved via product-centric focus throughout the phases of PuLSETM, customizability of its components, incremental introduction capability, maturity scale for structured evolution, and adaptations to a few main product development situations. PuLSETM is the result of a bottom-up effort: the methodology captures and leverages the results (the lessons learned) from our technology transfer activities with our industrial customers. We present in this paper the main ideas behind PuLSETM and illustrate the methodology with a running example taken from our transfer experience.

Component-based product line development: the KobrA approach

Abstract: The product line and component-based approaches to software engineering both hold the potential to significantly increase the level of reuse in industrial software development and maintenance. They also have complementary strengths, since they address the problem of reuse at opposite ends of the granularity spectrum; product line development essentially supports “reuse in the large” while component based development supports “reuse in the small.” This paper describes a method, Kobr A, that cleanly integrates the two paradigms into a systematic, unified approach to software development and maintenance. Key synergies resulting from this integration include support for the rapid and flexible instantiation of system variants, and the provision of methodological support for component-based framework development.

Calculating ROI for software product lines

Abstract: Product line engineering has become an important and widely used approach for efficiently developing portfolios of software products. The idea is to develop a set of products as a single, coherent development task from a core asset base (sometimes called a platform), a collection of artifacts specifically designed for use across a portfolio. This approach produces order-of-magnitude economic improvements compared to one-at-a-time software system development. Because the product line approach isn't limited to specific technical properties of the planned software but rather focuses on economic characteristics, high return on investment has become the anthem of the approach's protagonists. Our software product line cost model can calculate the costs and benefits (and hence the ROI) that we can expect to accrue from various product line development situations. It's also straightforward and intuitive.

Static evaluation of software architectures

Abstract: The software architecture is one of the most crucial artifacts within the lifecycle of a software system. Decisions made at the architectural level directly enable, facilitate, hamper, or interfere with the achievement of business goals, functional and quality requirements. Architecture evaluations play an important role in the development and evolution of software systems since they determine how adequate the architecture is for its intended usage. This paper summarizes our practical experience with using architecture evaluations and gives an overview on when and how static architecture evaluations contribute to architecture development. We identify ten distinct purposes and needs for static architecture evaluations and illustrate them using a set of industrial and academic case studies. In particular, we show how subsequent steps in architecture development are influenced by the results from architecture evaluations.

Out of the Crisis

Abstract: According to W. Edwards Deming, American companies require nothing less than a transformation of management style and of governmental relations with industry. In Out of the Crisis, originally published in 1982, Deming offers a theory of management based on his famous 14 Points for Management. Management's failure to plan for the future, he claims, brings about loss of market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to stay in business, protect investment, ensure future dividends, and provide more jobs through improved product and service. In simple, direct language, he explains the principles of management transformation and how to apply them.

Software reuse research: status and future

Abstract: This paper briefly summarizes software reuse research, discusses major research contributions and unsolved problems, provides pointers to key publications, and introduces four papers selected from The Eighth International Conference on Software Reuse (ICSR8).

An Overview of Feature-Oriented Software Development.

Abstract: Feature-oriented software development (FOSD) is a paradigm for the construction, customization, and synthesis of large-scale software systems. In this survey, we give an overview and a personal perspective on the roots of FOSD, connections to other software development paradigms, and recent developments in this field. Our aim is to point to connections between different lines of research and to identify open issues.

The Object Primer: Agile Model-Driven Development with UML 2.0

Abstract: Scott Ambler, award-winning author of Building Object Applications that Work, Process Patterns, and More Process Patterns, has revised his acclaimed first book, The Object Primer. Long prized by both students and professionals as the best introduction to object-oriented technology, this book is now completely up-to-date, with all modeling notation rewritten in the just-released UML 2.0. All chapters have been revised to take advantage of Agile Modeling (AM), which is presented in the new chapter 2 along with other important new modeling techniques. Review questions at the end of each chapter allow readers to test their newly acquired knowledge. In addition, Ambler takes time to reflect on the lessons learned over the past few years by discussing the proven benefits and drawbacks of the technology. This is the perfect book for any software development professional or student seeking an introduction to the concepts and terminology of object technology. Previous Edition Pb (2001): 0-521-78519-7 Scott W. Ambler is a senior object consultant with Ronin International, Inc. and a popular speaker at conferences worldwide. He has worked with OO technology since 1990 as a business architect, system analyst, system designer, mentor, Smalltalk/C++/Java developer, and OO software process manager. He is a member of the IEEE Computer Society, the ACM, and Mensa.

Business Process Variability Modeling: A Survey

Abstract: It is common for organizations to maintain multiple variants of a given business process, such as multiple sales processes for different products or multiple bookkeeping processes for different countries. Conventional business process modeling languages do not explicitly support the representation of such families of process variants. This gap triggered significant research efforts over the past decade, leading to an array of approaches to business process variability modeling. In general, each of these approaches extends a conventional process modeling language with constructs to capture customizable process models. A customizable process model represents a family of process variants in a way that a model of each variant can be derived by adding or deleting fragments according to customization options or according to a domain model. This survey draws up a systematic inventory of approaches to customizable process modeling and provides a comparative evaluation with the aim of identifying common and differentiating modeling features, providing criteria for selecting among multiple approaches, and identifying gaps in the state of the art. The survey puts into evidence an abundance of customizable process-modeling languages, which contrasts with a relative scarcity of available tool support and empirical comparative evaluations.