TABLE OF CONTENTS JOACHIM BAYER and DIRK MUTHIG
Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE)
Sauerwiesen 6, D-67661 Kaiserslautern, Germany
{bayer,muthig}@iese.fraunhofer.de
Abstract. The KobrA method, which has been developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE), combines and integrates several software engineering competencies under the umbrella of a systematic method for component-based product line engineering. In this chapter, an application of the KobrA method in constructing and using a generic component framework for a family of library systems is demonstrated. The case study serves two major purposes. On the one hand, it allowed us to play around with new ideas and to experiment with alternative approaches for realizing diverse concepts in the method. On the other hand, it is a comprehensive example that illustrates all aspects and features of the method.
The KobrA [1] method, which has been developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE), combines and integrates several software engineering competencies under the umbrella of a systematic method for component-based product line engineering [Atkinson et al. (2001)]. It, therefore, represents a synthesis of several advanced software engineering technologies. Besides product line development, it includes component-based development, frameworks, architecture-centric inspections, quality modeling, and process modeling. These have been integrated with the basic goal of providing a systematic approach to the development of high-quality, component-based application frameworks. One of the key characteristics of the KobrA approach is its introduction of the notion of components as early in the life cycle as possible, that...
