Modelling and Analysis of Feature-Oriented Software

软件系统的规模和复杂性正在增长。大规模系统的“规模”不再仅仅指大的代码库，而是指以特征为特征的极端可变性。特征在软件产品线中是特别相关的，在软件产品线中，一系列相关的软件产品（例如，智能手机、汽车软件）共享一组共同的强制性特征，并且产品通过其变量（可选或替代）来区分。当从一系列功能中派生出一个产品时，软件开发人员必须考虑这些功能如何相互作用。有些互动是有计划的，有些是无害的，有些是有害的。例如，2010年丰田普锐斯（Prius）刹车功能的软件控制器相互作用很差，降低了司机的刹车能力，导致62起撞车事故和12人受伤。为了安全起见，软件开发人员分析了所有可能的功能交互的后果，以便找到并修复不良交互。特征交互问题是要考虑的交互数量是特征数量的指数。因此，软件团队发现，他们在开发新功能时的工作主要是检测、分析和验证交互的任务。第二个问题是，软件开发人员没有意识到面向特征的开发的全部潜力，因为验证通常是在派生产品上执行的，并且验证所有可能的产品的成本太高。相反，只有一小部分产品是衍生、验证和提供给客户的。

Software systems are growing in size and complexity. The "scale" of large-scale systems no longer refers simply to large codebases but also to extreme variability, as characterized by features. Features are particularly relevant in software product lines, in which a family of related software products (e.g., smart phones, automotive software) shares a common set of mandatory features and products are differentiated by their variable (optional or alternative). When deriving a product from a selection of features, software developers must consider how the features interact. Some interactions are planned, some are innocuous, and others are harmful. For example, the software controllers for the braking features on the 2010 Toyota Prius interacted badly, reducing drivers' ability to brake and leading to 62 reported crashes and 12 injuries. To be safe, software developers analyze the consequences of all possible feature interactions, in order to find and fix the bad interactions. The Feature Interaction Problem is that the number of interactions to consider is exponential in the number of features. As a result, a software team finds that its work in developing new features is dominated by the tasks to detect, analyze, and verify interactions. A second problem is that software developers do not realize the full potential of feature-oriented development because verification is typically performed on derived products and it is too costly to verify all of the possible products. Instead, a small fraction of products are derived, verified and offered to customers.