Examining usability of classes in collaboration with SPL feature model

Abstract

Software product line engineering paradigm focuses on developing families of products keeping track of their common aspects and predicted variabilities. Feature models are often used for depicting the commonalities and variabilities existing in software product lines. Classes are used to program the features of the feature models and thus a significant relationship exists between the two. As software product line focuses on reuse, we have proposed a metric to measure the degree of usability of classes in context of features which are using them. Eclipse FeatureIDE is used to prove the proposed metrics. The aim of the research is to track usability of classes keeping in mind their planned reuse, efficient development and maintenance.