Uncovering sustainability concerns in software product lines

Abstract

SUMMARYSustainable living, i.e., living within the bounds of the available environmental, social, and economic resources, is the focus of many present-day social and scientific discussions. But what does sustainability mean within the context of Software Engineering? In this paper we undertake a comprehensive analysis of 8 case studies to address this question within the context of a specific SE approach, Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE). We identify the sustainability-related characteristics that arise in present-day studies that apply SPLE. We conclude that technical and economic sustainability are in prime focus on the present SPLE practice, with social sustainability issues, where they relate to organisations, also addressed to a good degree. On the other hand, the issues related to the personal sustainability are less prominent, and environmental considerations are nearly completely amiss. We present feature models and cross-relations that result from our analysis as a starting point for sustainability engineering through SPLE, suggesting that any new development should consider how these models would be instantiated and expanded for the intended socio-technical system. The good representation of sustainability features in these models is also validated with two additional case studies.

Widening the Circle of Engagement Around Environmental Issues using Cloud-based Tools

“…There is a growing body of work on Green ICT, focusing on challenges of software sustainability [22], [23], energy efficiency [24], and automated control systems (e.g. [25]).…”

Situational Factors for Modern Code Review to Support Software Engineers’ Sustainability

“…Sustainable software engineering is presently a major concern in software development [1], [2]. It has five major aspects such as individual, social, economic, environmental, and technical [3], [4]. It is argued that work has been done regarding technical, economic, social, and environmental aspect of sustainable software engineering, however, individual sustainability aspect has been given less attention by the researchers and it warrants future research [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7].…”

“…Regarding individual sustainability, the software engineers are confronting with the issue of lack of competency in the identification of situational factors in various software engineering activities such as software requirement gathering and design, software construction and testing, modern code review [3], [8], [9].…”

“…The existing work concerning identification of situational factors have got attention by the researcher in software requirement and for software development, however, less attention has been devoted concerning situational context in modern code review specifically, to support software engineers' sustainability [3], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12] that can be the reason of software failure [3], [11], [13], [14].…”

Challenges in the development of green and sustainable software for software multisourcing vendors: Findings from a systematic literature review and industrial survey

“…The tendency has changed in the last few years, and research on the new theme of green software is emerging . However, the literature shows that green and sustainable software development has not received sufficient attention from practitioners and researchers, and vendors face the consequences in the form of challenges/risks. The matter becomes more complicated in multisourced projects, in which teams develop software units independently without having the bigger picture in mind when these units will be integrated into one unit .…”