Yet another textual variability language?
Chico Sundermann, Kevin Feichtinger, Dominik Engelhardt, Rick Rabiser, Thomas Thüm
Abstract
Variability models are commonly used to model commonalities and variability in a product line. There is a large variety of textual formats to represent and store variability models. This variety causes overhead to researchers and practitioners as they frequently need to translate models. The MODEVAR initiative consists of dozens of researchers and aims to find a unified language for variability modeling. In this work, we describe the cooperative development of a textual variability language. We evaluate preferences of the community regarding properties of existing formats and applications for an initial design of a unified variability language. Then, we examine the acceptance of the community for our proposal. The results indicate that our proposal is a promising start towards a unified variability language instead of yet another language. We envision that the community applies our language proposal in teaching, research prototypes, and industrial applications to further evolve the design and then ultimately reach a unified language.