SPL @ ECMDA 2009 After Show Report
June (23rd – 26th) 2009 was the “Fifth European Conference on Model-Driven Architecture Foundations and Applications” in Enschede, The Netherlands.
With very nice weather (27°Celsius compared to rain storms in not so far away southern Germany) and a very nice campus, it proved to be worth my and probably also the time of most the other participants. First for me was the MDPLE workshop on the 24th. Quite a number of participants (some 25) it seems to be a hot topic in the model driven community. Most of the presentations were on the technical side of the problem (to be expected), except for the key note of Mehmet Akşit, who made an very interesting proposal for checking a product line modeling approach: If you are able to capture the product line variability of the last 15 years in your approach, it is most likely also able to go with you for the next 15 years. The point was of course, that an approach must be able to deal with the future evolution. Since future is not known exactly (wouldn’t be a “real “ future otherwise), the only thing is to treat your history as simulation of the way the future will be. In many of the (earlier) approaches of model driven development and product lines as well, evolution and change was somehow left out of the equation. BTW, there were at least 3 conference papers looking at good ways to deal with model evolution (have a look at the Friday 10.30 session). As part of the workshop we had also a part where polemic questions were collected and answers for those discussed by the audience. This was also quite funny since there were some really polemic questions with a serious background.
Our own paper presentation “Managing Flexibility: Modeling Binding-Times in Simulink” (Springer LNCS 5562) went well, but was slightly to long reducing the number of allowed question to just one 
. And in my demonstration of pure::variants for Enterprise Architect I tried to copy the wrong model (twice at least), contradicting somewhat the purpose of the copy action (which was to speed up the demonstration, 20 min are fairly short). Anyway, I was able to make my point and got some good response afterwards. Some other demonstrations also linked their model driven approaches/tools to product line ideas. IBM demonstrated an UML based approach, which was not to different from our integration with UML conceptually, so we cannot be completely wrong on this 
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The success of the MDPLE workshop makes me looking forward to the First International Workshop on Model-Driven Approaches in Software Product Line Engineering (MAPLE), which is obviously not the first workshop on this topic, only the first one using the acronym MAPLE . The workshop is part of this year’s SPLC in San Francisco (August 24th – 28th), on which I will post something later on.
SPL @ ECMDA 2009
In June (23rd – 26th) 2009 there will be the “Fifth European Conference on Model-Driven Architecture Foundations and Applications” in Enschede, The Netherlands. Since not only I believe that the combination of model-driven development and product line development is the next big thing in software development, there will be some activities related to SPL at this conference. First of all, there will a dedicated workshop about this topic, the MDPLE workshop on the 24th. There will also be a paper presentation “Managing Flexibility: Modeling Binding-Times in Simulink”. Incidentally this paper was authored by Jens Weiland, Reutlingen University, and me and talks about our ideas for implementation of binding times in the MATLAB/Simulink tool chain (this stuff will be shortly available in pure::variants). I am also quite sure that some other talks will touch upon SPL topics. One interesting idea is for instance the idea presented in this work: “Enabling Automated Traceability Maintenance Through the Upkeep of Traceability Relations” by Mäder et al. They try to use automatic rule based detection of changes in artifacts, which initiate (semi-)automatic update of the trace relations. And there will be a pure::variants demonstration showing how to integrate pure::variants feature modeling and model-based development with UML and Simulink.
Learning About SPL Can Be Fun – At Least in Japan
If you want to refresh both your Japanese and your knowledge about SPL, have a look at this nice movie. If you need more, check out the related web page. If your Japanese skills (like mine) are rather limited, there is also an English variant of this page and movie. The eXmotion guys behind this training have been working in the field of product line development for quite a while, they are using pure::variants , and have some nice toys to play with in this training. So even I would like to book this training if only my Japanese would be better 
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Want To Talk About (Your) Product Line Experiences? Check out Practical Product Lines 2009!
After returning from SPLC 2009 (August 24-28, in the exciting city of San Francisco) there is one more product line event to consider: Practical Product Lines (October 20-21, in the equally interesting city of Amsterdam). While the former event is well know for bringing together researchers and practitioners to learn from each other, the later is more oriented towards exchange between industry practitioners and experts, similar to the very successful “Code Generation” series of events. At this point in time you can involve yourself by proposing talks, workshops etc. Different formats are possible, just have a look at the call for speakers.
Yes, this reads like an advertisement. I feel the time is right for this kind of events as companion to the SPLC. And I admit, that after being to the Code Generation events twice I (and presumably not only I) asked Mark of Software Acumen, if he would be interested in organizing something for the product line community. It seems, he is .
