Improving reuse of component families by generating component hierarchies
Marko Rosenmüller, Norbert Siegmund, Martin Kuhlemann · 2010
Feature-oriented software development (FOSD) enables developers to generate families of similar components. However, current FOSD approaches degrade component reuse because they do not allow a developer to combine multiple components of the same family in a larger program. This is because individual family members cannot be distinguished from each other. We present an approach to model and generate component hierarchies that allow a programmer to combine multiple component variants. A component hierarchy structures the components of a family according to their functionality. Due to subtyping between the components of a hierarchy, client developers can write generic code that works with different component variants.