Abstract
Similar software products can be developed as a product family. Common architecture, addressing all common requirements of products in the family, provides the basis for wide scale reuse within the family. When independent products continue their evolution, they face new requirements that may prove to have wider scope and need addressing at the family level. However, changes on the family level may be very costly for the product projects. Our experience shows that architectural evolution is possible and practical if each change has been carefully planned, taking into account its organizational aspects. Then the change has to be carried out so that the product line does not stop. Large architectural changes are high-risk operations; even when they succeed, they tend to take much longer than expected.
The original version of this chapter was revised: The copyright line was incorrect. This has been corrected. The Erratum to this chapter is available at DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-35563-4_35
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© 1999 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing
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Kuusela, J. (1999). Architectural Evolution. In: Donohoe, P. (eds) Software Architecture. WICSA 1999. IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing, vol 12. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35563-4_27
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35563-4_27
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-6536-6
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-35563-4
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