A Case Study on a Quality Assurance Process for a Scientific Framework

In the quality assurance of scientific frameworks, both the special characteristics of scientific software and the large variability in frameworks must be accounted for. In previous research, the authors developed a process for handling the variability of a framework using software product line variability modeling. They described the design of a quality assurance process for scientific frameworks. This article reports on a case study analyzing the feasibility and acceptance by developers for two parts of the quality assurance process: variability model creation and desk-checking. The main results of the case study are that variability modeling is feasible for the development; however, a different variability modeling language is needed to be able to represent all important aspects. This study found acceptance of variability modeling and desk-checking.