Comparing design alternatives from field-tested systems to support product line architecture design

This paper introduces an approach to mine field-tested design solutions when defining the architecture of a new product line. The design comparison approach (DCA) compares design solution alternatives implemented in existing systems and analyze the impact of the solutions on these systems. This explicit comparison and analysis offer the architect of the to-be-built product line to develop an architecture of higher quality by incorporating field-tested, proven concepts and strategies. We show the applicability and usefulness of the approach in two case studies concerned with the architectural design of Eclipse plug-ins.