Software product lines (SPLs) enable modular, large-scale reuse through a software architecture addressing multiple core and varying features. To reap the benefits of SPLs, their designs need to be stable. Design stability encompasses the sustenance of the product line’s modularity properties in the presence of changes to both the core and varying features. It is usually assumed that aspect-oriented programming promotes better modularity and changeability of product lines. However, there is no empirical evidence on its efficacy to prolong design stability of product lines in realistic development scenarios. This paper reports a quantitative study that evolves two SPLs to assess various facets of design stability of aspect-oriented implementations. Our investigation focused upon a multi-perspective analysis of the evolving product lines in terms of modularity, change propagation, and feature interaction.

Aspect oriented software development (AOSD) focuses on the separation of crosscutting concerns. Crosscutting concerns are separable at the requirements phase, design phase, or implementation phase. In this survey, we have classified aspect oriented requirements engineering (AORE) approaches as traditional and non-traditional requirements engineering approaches. The traditional approaches are based on fundamental requirements engineering approaches such as viewpoint oriented, use case/scenario, and goal oriented approaches. Whereas the non-traditional approaches are based on component based engineering, feature driven developments, and domain analysis and engineering. The AORE models have been compared on the basis of systematic activities for separation of concerns: identify, separate, represent, and compose, conflict resolution techniques, and tool support. This survey deals with the open issues put forward by various authors and the observations made by analyses of the AORE models.