RT Journal Article
T1 Visualizations for the evolution of Variant-Rich Systems: A systematic mapping study: 												A systematic mapping study
A1 Medeiros, Raul
A1 Martinez, Jabier
A1 Díaz, Oscar
A1 Falleri, Jean-Rémy
AB Context: Variant-Rich Systems (VRSs), such as Software Product Lines or variants created through clone & own, aim at reusing existing assets. The long lifespan of families of variants, and the scale of both the code base and the workforce make VRS maintenance and evolution a challenge. Visualization tools are a needed companion. Objective: We aim at mapping the current state of visualization interventions in the area of VRS evolution. We tackle evolution in both functionality and architecture. Three research questions are posed: What sort of analysis is being conducted to assess VRS evolution? (Analysis perspective); What sort of visualizations are displayed? (Visualization perspective); What is the research maturity of the reported interventions? (Maturity perspective). Methods: We performed a systematic mapping study including automated search in digital libraries, expert knowledge, and snowballing. Results: The study reports on 41 visualization approaches to cope with VRS evolution. Analysis wise, feature identification and location is the most popular scenario, followed by variant integration towards a Software Product Line. As for visualization, nodelink diagram visualization is predominant while researchers have come up with a wealth of ingenious visualization approaches. Finally, maturity wise, almost half of the studies are solution proposals. Most of the studies provide proof-of-concept, some of them also include publicly available tools, yet very few face proof-of-value. Conclusions: This study introduces a comparison framework where to frame future studies. It also points out distinct research gaps worth investigating as well as shortcomings in the evidence about relevance and contextual considerations (e.g., scalability).
SN 0950-5849
YR 2023
FD 2023-02
LA eng
NO Medeiros , R , Martinez , J , Díaz , O & Falleri , J-R 2023 , ' Visualizations for the evolution of Variant-Rich Systems: A systematic mapping study : A systematic mapping study ' , Information and Software Technology , vol. 154 , 107084 , pp. 107084 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2022.107084
NO Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)
DS TECNALIA Publications
RD 1 jul 2024