Thanks for the heart-felt comments Mike. It's alwa...

2008-02-16T11:38:00.000-05:00

Thanks for the heart-felt comments Mike. It's always tough working in a business where no one can physically see your work. However, ideas like feature-oriented programming can help.

Since writing this post, I've been in contact with the paper's authors. They recommended I read the follow-up that extends/solidifies the algebra. Another one that focuses on representing programs as trees. An interesting one on using colors in an IDE to represent granularity/features along with hiding an #ifdef approach in PLAs. Finally, one discussing problems with AspectJ.

All of them are interesting and offer how tools might make the problem more manageable. Unfortunately, no "silver bullet" exists. There are things like the Adapter pattern, or focusing on interfaces, but in our languages (especially without mixins), it's hard.

Good stuff! I browsed to the Product Line Archite...

2008-02-15T18:28:00.000-05:00

Good stuff! I browsed to the Product Line Architecture Research Group site and tagged it as a bookmark for some future reading. I like your idea and I think you have found a good model for the complexity of software development but I don't see it playing well with the management types that I am used to. Where I work, our managers use colors to indicate status (Green - good, Yellow - so-so, and Red - bad). I don't see talking about derivatives furthering my cause for my resources. Of course it may be fun to try it on them just to watch the drool run down their chins and thier eyes glaze over doh! Of course I am just joking! If we where able to truly communicate the complexity of our work, our managers would close down shop, cut thier losses and go into the dry-cleaning business. Your list of Software Engineer practices to minimize derivatives is very complete. Right now I would like to explore product line architectures. PLAs lead to the thought that you are not just developing products but you are developing and nuturing the means of production to be used for future efforts. I think this type of thinking will keep our brilliant managing brethren from being entirely short-term bottom-line fixated and think more big picture.

Comments on Moserware: SKU Driven Development

Thanks for the heart-felt comments Mike. It's alwa...

Good stuff! I browsed to the Product Line Archite...