Delta-trait programming of software product lines

Abstract

Delta-oriented programming (DOP) is a flexible approach for implementing software product lines (SPLs). DOP SPLs are implemented by a set of delta modules encapsulating changes to class-based object-oriented programs. A particular product in a DOP SPL is generated by applying to the empty program the modifications contained in the delta modules associated to the selected product features. Traits are pure units of behavior, designed to support flexible fine-grained reuse and to provide an effective means to counter the limitations of class-based inheritance. A trait is a set of methods which is independent from any class hierarchy and can be flexibly used to build other traits or classes by means of a suite of composition operations. In this paper, we present an approach for programming SPLs of trait-based programs where the program modifications expressed by delta modules are formulated by exploiting the trait composition mechanism. This smooth integration of the modularity mechanisms provided by delta modules and traits results in a new approach for programming SPLs, deltatrait programming (DTP), which is particularly well suited for evolving SPLs.