Design principles for reusable software product platforms

Abstract

This chapter is an introduction to software design based on general principles and engineering techniques, applicable to the design of software platforms that are to be used as a foundation for the construction of product families. The second section focuses on the fundamental characteristics of Design for Change, which describes the qualities and structure that the software system must exhibit as a product platform in order to be capable of evolving and adapting to the changing needs of a range of related products within a family, or within an industry domain over a long period of time. The third section introduces a number of software engineering techniques that ensure that the software system to be developed will have a structure suitable for supporting the general platform qualities presented in the first section. The main purpose of this chapter is to provide the background information on software engineering terms and concepts that are needed to understand Chap. 26.