EASEL: an Extensible Architecting Support Environment with Layers

EASEL: an Extensible Architecting Support Environment with Layers (Demo)
Student: Scott A. Hendrickson, UCI/ISR
Advisors: Richard N. Taylor, UCI/ISR, André van der Hoek, UCI/ISR
Abstract: The essence of any modeling approach for product line architectures lies in its ability to express variability. Existing approaches do so by explicitly specifying variation points inside the architectural specification of the entire product line, usually with optional and alternative elements of some form. This, however, leads to a sizable mismatch between conceptual variability (i.e., the features through which architects logically view and interpret differences in product architectures) and physical variability (i.e., the actual modeling constructs through which the logical differences must be expressed). EASEL contributes a new modeling approach for product line architectures that uses change sets to group related architectural differences and relationships to govern the combinations of change sets that are valid when they are composed into a particular product architecture. The result is an approach in which the modeling of variability is lifted from the modeling of architectural structure, in which related variation points are consolidated, and in which the management of compatibility among variabilities is explicitly and separately managed.
Bio: Scott A. Hendrickson is a PhD student in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine, working with Dr. Richard N. Taylor. His research interests are in collaborative design environments. Hendrickson has an MS in information and computer science from the University of California, Irvine. He is a member of the ACM and the IEEE.