Propagation of commits in preprocessor-based software product lines

Description

Preprocessor-based software product lines managed in version control systems are nowadays one of the most common mechanisms for dealing with evolution in space, i.e., the introduction of new features; and in time, i.e., the modification of existing features. However, preprocessor directives make the system readability and maintainability harder. Further, version control systems do not provide proper support to recover information at the granularity of features. This situation leads to complex propagation of changes as multiple features are tangled and affected. As a prerequisite to propose a solution for this scenario, we need first to understand how features evolve and are propagated in preprocessor-based software product lines. With this goal, we thus performed an empirical analysis to understand the evolution of real-world preprocessor-based systems and the current limitations of the Git version control system to deal with the features in such systems.

Period	31 Mar 2022
Event title	FOSD Meeting 2022
Event type	Conference
Location	AustriaShow on map