Creating virtual stores using software product lines: An application case

Software product line engineering is an approach that uses planned reuse to take advantage of common and variable elements found in software products belonging to the same sector. Otherwise, a virtual store is an electronic commerce system that allows trading between clients and enterprises. During the development of diverse virtual store software, it is possible to find common elements that could be capitalized creating a whole family of products. Therefore, the software product line approach could be applied. Based on the above elements, this paper presents two main contributions: an application case of software product lines to the virtual store domain and a generator that makes easier to set and automatically derive stores from the product line. Using this automatic generator of virtual stores (called GAT Spanish acronym) it is possible to create partially complete stores that require only final development adjustments.