A Matter of the Mix: Integration of Compile and Runtime Variability

Abstract

While dynamic software product lines focus on runtime variability, traditional software product lines typically aim at development-time variability. In this paper, we argue that integrating both kinds of binding times into a single variability model can be beneficial for modeling the adaptation space as well as for controlling runtime decision making. We achieve this by a mix of modeling and constraint capabilities. We illustrate the integration of compile time and runtime variability using a general-purpose variability modeling language and an example from the field of adaptive data stream processing. We also discuss advantages and disadvantages of our approach.