Evaluating the Effort of Integrating Feature Models: A Controlled Experiment (S)
Vinícius Bischoff, Kleinner Farias, Lucian José Gonçales · Proceedings/Proceedings of the ... International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering · 2018
The integration of feature models plays a key role in many tasks in software development, such as evolving Software Product Lines (SPL) to add new features.However, based on our experience in previous empirical studies, one of the main shortcomings to the widespread adoption of integration techniques is the lack of empirical knowledge about its effects on the effort of analysts and developers.This problem applies to integration techniques involving a set of operations (union and intersection) as well as the relationships between features and their elements.This article, therefore, reports on a controlled experiment that investigated the effort of (1) applying the integration techniques of feature models by professionals and students, and (2) detecting and resolving inconsistencies in the output-integrated models.The integration effort was evaluated through 10 evolution scenarios.The main results suggest that there is no significant difference regarding (1) the integration effort invested by professionals and students to produce a desired integrated model, and (2) the correctness rate of the integrations performed by professionals and students.