Handling Variability in Software Architecture: Problems and Implications

Abstract

Variability helps manage differences and commonalities within and across software systems. As variability is reflected in and facilitated through the software architecture, it is important to understand the problems that architects face when carrying out their tasks. This would help us improve methods for architecting variability-intensive software systems. In this paper, we therefore present an exploratory study to identify problems that occur when performing variability-related tasks during software architecting. Our subjects were 27 graduate students. We identified eleven problems as experienced by the subjects of our study. The paper also presents implications of the findings for the software architecture field. In particular, we discuss implications for architecture description, methods and tools, and the training of architects.