Generating App Product Lines in a Model-Driven Cross-Platform Development Approach

Dageförde Jan C., Reischmann Tobias, Majchrzak Tim A., Ernsting Jan

Abstract
Within software product lines (SPLs) similar software products are created based on common features. We applied this versatile approach to cross-platform app development by extending the domain-specific language (DSL) of an established model-driven development framework. The goal was to support the formulation of coherent building blocks of business use cases, referred to as workflow elements. While the former implementation already abstracted from technical details and provided the possibility to reuse low-level features, it now enables to build business apps by combining coherent, self-contained workflow elements. Providing this support on the language level facilitates reusable component-based development. In this paper, we sketch the enhanced framework’s background and discuss SPL implications for cross-platform app development. We explain in detail how language-level modularization is realized and discuss implications, limitations, and open questions.