How Domain-Specific Modeling Languages Address Variability in Product Line Development: Investigation of 23 Cases

Domain-Specific Modeling raises the level of abstraction beyond programming by specifying the solution directly with domain concepts. Within product lines domain-specific approaches are applied to specify variability and then generate final products together with commonality. Such automated product derivation is possible because both the modeling language and generator are made for a particular product line - often inside a single company. In this paper we examine which kinds of reuse and product line approaches are applied in industry with domain-specific modeling. Our work is based on empirical analysis of 23 cases and the languages and models created there. The analysis reveals a wide variety and some commonalities in the size of languages and in the ways they apply reuse and product line approaches.