Guidelines for using aspects in product lines

Software product lines are a successful approach to software reuse. To a significant extent, the development of product lines is complicated by crosscutting concerns. This is especially true for product line configuration. Aspect-oriented programming can often help to develop product lines more effectively, but this is not always so. This paper shows it is possible to sublimate the expert knowledge about using aspect-oriented programming in product line development in the form of independently applicable guidelines by proposing an approach to expressing such guidelines. A complete guideline entitled Implementing Mandatory Features with no Crosscutting Concerns is presented as an example. The guidelines have been evaluated in a product line case study that confirmed their applicability. The results of this study obtained by the application of a number of metrics are provided and discussed in the paper.