1. A Practical High Volume Software Product Line Peter Bell CEO/CTO SystemsForge ooPLSA ‘07 Peter Bell CEO/CTO SystemsForge ooPLSA ‘07

2. Overview What we do The problem Our approach Lessons learned

3. What We Do... Custom web applications Small/mid sized businesses $10,000 - $50,000 Content management E-commerce Document management Workflow...

4. The Problems Clients don’t know Elicit requirements Clients don’t care Efficient feature reuse Clients DO care Build anything, change everything

5. Clients Don’t Know... Problem: Marketing managers/CEOs No software experience Vague requirements Fixed bid/scope/timeframe Need: Quick, flexible approach

6. Clients Don’t Care... Problem: Don’t want to specify everything Mainly want “good enough” Need: Reusable “best practices” Efficient fabrication

7. Clients DO Care... Care about some things Covers all areas Build anything - change everything

8. Our Approach Software product line Specification process Feature model Decision support Domain Specific Languages Dynamic framework

9. Software Product Lines Lots of similar applications Framework Components Configuration Extension Bounded/Unbounded Layered approach

10. Specification Process Business intent Roles/personas Essential tasks Packages Screens/Actions IA Look and feel

11. Feature Modeling Commercial products pure:variants Big Lever Our approach Feature tree Essential/optional metadata Feature constraints

12. Decision Support Associating optional metadata Decision tree Non-technical users

13. Domain Specific Languages “Efficiently encode executable intent” Everything is a DSL Language, API, XML, Data model, etc. Flexibility in implementation “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean” - Humpty Dumpty

14. Domain Specific Languages Abstract grammar vs. Concrete Syntax Projections (storage/editing) Edit: cms Store: db Publish: XML Consume: Framework/API

15. Dynamic Framework Powered by parameterization Where are the classes? Merging DSLs with code Inheritance, AOP, mixins (object/class), code blocks

16. Lessons Learned Reuse specs - not code Framework vs. code generation Evolution is key

17. Questions? Read the paper :) Website: www.systemsforge.comwww.systemsforge.com Blog: www.pbell.comwww.pbell.com Email: peter@pbell.com - Yahoo: freshstartsw - AIM: appgenerationpeter@pbell.com