An Algebra for Features and Feature Composition

kaestner@cs.cmu.edu (S. Apel, C. Lengauer, B. Möller, C. Kästner)
Sat, 05 Mar 2016 18:41:39 -0500

Sven Apel, Christian Lengauer, Bernhard Möller, and Christian Kästner. An Algebra for Features and Feature Composition. In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Algebraic Methodology and Software Technology (AMAST), volume 5140 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 36--50, Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, July 2008.

Feature-Oriented Software Development (FOSD) provides a multitude of formalisms, methods, languages, and tools for building variable, customizable, and extensible software. Along different lines of research, different notions of a feature have been developed. Although these notions have similar goals, no common basis for evaluation, comparison, and integration exists. We present a feature algebra that captures the key ideas of feature orientation and provides a common ground for current and future research in this field, in which also alternative options can be explored.