Elektronik automotive magazine has published an article describing work done at Daimler Chrysler on managing diversity in the automotive domain.

A basic problem automotive systems developers are facing is the large number of possible vehicle functions and options due for example to differences in target markets, vehicle type and engine capacity.

This variability can only be handled economically through strategic reuse and this requires a formal model for the variability inherent in the product line.

The article describes an approach to this using the pure::variants specialist solution for managing variability and product lines in conjunction with the widely-used Simulink® toolset.

Here’s the blurb:

A characteristic of today’s motor vehicles is a wide range of variants with slightly different functions. Since this variability has to be reflected in the software development models, it is essential that there are concepts for systematically handling the variability of functional models. Differentiating between the central and model specific variability information allows uniform handling in Simulink and creates an explicit representation of distributed model variability.

I couldn’t have said it better myself…

The original version of the article is in German but an English version can be downloaded from the Software Acumen web site here: Handling functional variants in Simulink® models (PDF 898kb opens in new window)

Simulink is a registered trademark of The Mathworks Inc.

I ran a variant of my talk When Good Architecture Went Bad at the Embedded Masterclass recently. This is a free, one day event with technical talks and a small exhibition aimed at embedded engineers.

This year there were actually two Masterclasses, one in London and one in Bristol and the combined attendance was around 140 - despite problems on the London railways conspiring to keep a few people away.

A couple of questions that came up during my sessions:

• Do real-time software systems suffer from architectural decay less than other types of software? - I have a gut feel that no, they decayed just like other software systems despite more rigourous verification methods being used in many cases. This is because architectural decay comes from change - change in functionality, change in staffing, change in tools and technologies and I don’t feel that in general real-time systems are less prone to these types of changes.
• Does UML help? - Not being a big fan of UML I passed this one onto Kevlin Henney who happened to be attending the Bristol Masterclass. His view - yes and no. Yes if you use UML to document what you have implemented (and so communicate the architecture), no if you rely on a UML document to act as a guide for implementation. (apologies to Kevlin if I misremembered this)

Being in Bristol also gave me the chance to meet up with some of the local ACCU members. We went to the Old India restaurant in the city’s former stock exchange - great food in a great setting with great company. Thanks to Tony Barrett-Powell for arranging this at short notice.

We’ll be taking part in next week’s Wireless Developer Forum event in Cambridge, UK exhibiting pure::variants the specialist toolset that helps software developers deal with the problems inherent in (mobile) device diversity.

The programme includes sessions on four main themes:

• Mobile in an Open, “Web 2.0″ world
• Business Models and Revenue Generation
• Navigating the Route to Market &
• Usability for Complex Multimedia

A few places are still available at time of writing. Hope to see you there.

The Cambridge Wireless Software SIG meets next on 11th April 2008 to consider the opportunities and difficulties of developing successful internet applications for mobile platforms.

Dave Burke an engineering manager from Google’s mobile team will speak about the development of applications including: Search, Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube and of course Google’s new Android platform. I’m currently trying to source a second speaker from another big Internet player.

The event will be held at Symbian, Milton and starts at 14:00. The event is free to Cambridge Wireless members and tickets for non-members are £150.00 plus VAT.

Visit http://www.cambridgewireless.co.uk/events/article/default.aspx?objid=35144 for more information and to sign-up.

Today was a little quieter than day 1 of ESS.

This was a little surprising as the second day had been busier at last year’s ESS and we were also expecting increased footfall due to today’s Model-Driven Development stream at the associated IET Technical conference.

However, we did get a fair number of people visiting the stand but between visits I was able to go round and speak to some of the model-based development tool vendors about Code Generation 2008.

IIRC I spoke to ARTiSAN Software, Connective Logic Systems, Esterel, Kennedy-Carter, Mentor Graphics, No Magic and The Mathworks all of whom have some sort of MDSD capability albeit addressed at a wide variety of problem domains.

I didn’t explain earlier but some of you may have spotted the silver objects in a large bowl on the table in our stand photo:

Here Danilo Beuche of pure-systems, the developers of pure::variants, illustrates:

These silver stress balls were the must have giveaway at ESS 2007. (OK, of the 4 companies giving away stress balls these were the must have ones.)  I think we must have shifted around 60 of these things - people must be stressed in embedded land, although one visitor said it would be ideal for her dog!

In case you didn’t notice these stress balls fit in with our new ‘Relax…‘ campaign as illustrated on our stand.

However, by the end of the day we were all pretty unrelaxed. Being on your feet for a couple of days takes it out of you - although on the whole I personally find it an enjoyable experience. So, after the exhibition closed, we packed up in a surprisingly short time and headed back to Cambridge.

It will be interesting to see how ESS 2008 fares. Although it is the largest embedded exhibition in the UK it is around 20-25 times smaller than Germany’s Embedded World. I also get the feeling that an increasing number of people are simply turning to the web to find information and see product demos.

However, what you can’t get through the web is an immediate interaction with the product experts. At best this means it takes you longer to work out how the product could be used in your environment, at worst you could wrongly reject a product that could in fact be very beneficial to you. This is particularly difficult for us as variant management and software product lines are not (yet) well-known terms and so we find it hard to explain exactly what pure::variants could do for people.

With the stand in place we waited for the exhibition to open…

This year, like 2006, we’re demonstrating pure::variants the leading toolset for variant management and software product line development.

This is the UK’s largest exhibition for embedded developers by far and with an increased number of exhibitors we expected more people through the door.

By 10:30 a number of people had made it to our stand near the back of the hall. We find that people tend to work their way through the stands nearer the front first.

We generally do a short demonstration when people arrive on our stand and try and find out how pure::variants maps to their specific problems. The embedded space is very diverse and this is reflected in the types of participant that visit the stand.

Sometimes people with little software knowledge come onto the stand to find out exactly what it is we do. This seems to be a recurring pattern as companies that once produced little software are finding themselves having to produce more and more of the stuff.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are very experienced software developers who already know about the problem of variant management, have read about us and are keen to explore in great depth precisely what pure::variants can do for them and how it integrates into their overall software life cycle. Until you have a chance to find out more about the person you don’t know where in this spectrum their knowledge lies.

The press were also in attendance and I was happy to speak to a small number of editors and journalists about pure::variants and next year’s Code Generation 2008 event. There is a growing interest in model-based software development in the embedded community and hopefully our event is contributing to this as well as benefitting from it.

More on ESS 2007 tomorrow.

A short drive from Cambridge saw us at the NEC car park unloading our stand for this year’s Embedded Systems Show which took place from 17th-18th October.

I guess most people never see what these things look like before the exhibitors arrive. In general there is a mass of activity as the shell-schemes are assembled and wired up and furniture is delivered.

Here’s the view from our stand on our arrival:

and here’s the view of our ’stand’:

Richard and Sally Blackburn of Energi Tech were around doing some work for their clients SDC Systems. I know both Richard and Sally from the Embedded Masterclass events so I said hello.

Then, over the next hour or so, we gradually transformed the raw stand into our finished product…

Step 1 - The frame for the ‘pop-up’ stand

Step 2 - Completing the ‘pop-up’ stand

Step 3 - The assembled counter

Step 4 - adding the roll-ups and literature stands

Step 5 - the finished article.

We’d wrapped up the stand assembly by 18:00 and headed off into Birmingham for the night.

All in all we were pretty pleased with the new stand design and reckon it’s a significant improvement over our stand at ESS 2006.

Read more on ESS 2007 next week…

At the Cambridge Wireless Software SIG launch meeting at the start of the month I ran an exercise to try and identify the top issues of concern to software developers in the wireless space. The goals of the exercise were to explore whether we could come to some sort of consensus on the issues faced by developers working in this space as a guide to arranging future events.

The participants grouped themselves into 3 teams and were given about 25 minutes to come up with their views on the top issues and how they were related. After the 25 minutes were up each team presented their results to all participants.

Team 1

Due to the businesses they worked in this team focussed on issues beyond the mobile device.

• The realities of the current network pose problems
  • Limited bandwidth
  • Lack of reliability
  • Network latencies
• End-to-end performance of the total solution
  • Controlling costs
  • Providing a satisfactory level of service

Team 2

This team came up with 4 device-specific issues:

• Lack of uniformity across the target platforms - could an open platform be the solution to this?
• The ‘micro’ form of the mobile user interface
  • Limited display size and resolution. Variability in aspect ratios.
  • Variability in button numbering and button functions on the kepypad.
• The role of network proxies
• Testing at a high level of abstraction

Team 3

I was in this team and since I knew how the exercise was going to work (and since I had a couple of very experienced wireless people with me) we came up with quite a number of points.

So, variability in the target devices, the user interface and network issues come up again.

Feedback for the participants indicates it was a useful exercise and it’s helped us plan future events.

The next CW Software SIG will take place on April 11th 2008. I’m currently organising the agenda which will probably look at the future of mobile development as seen from the search engine providers’ perspective.

Cambridge Wireless have signed up as supporting partner for Code Generation 2008.

In return for their support Cambridge Wireless founder members will get 20% off conference fees and associate members 10% off.

Cambridge Wireless is a network of companies with a shared interest in the application of wireless technologies. Activities are based around a number of Special Interest Groups (SIGs), each focussed on a specific technology and/or market area. I run the software SIG for CW - next meeting April 11th - drop me a line via Software Acumen for more details.

The Embedded Systems Show takes place next week so I thought it might be worth giving my own personal take on what to see there.

• I’ll be visiting the ARTiSAN Software stand to get an update on ARTiSAN Studio. This is a model-driven development toolset aimed at avionics development. We carried an interview on the Code Generation Network earlier this year with Fabrizio Pugnetti a Senior Consultant at ARTiSAN’s Italian office. Lots of other model-driven tool providers will be at the exhibition if you’re in the market for said type of tool but I know ARTiSAN best.
• No Magic will also be at ESS. I’ve heard good things about their Magic Draw generator toolset so feel I should see a demo if nothing more. Perhaps I can persuade them to write an article for the Code Generation Network.
• I’ve blogged before about Proven Software Solutions - it looks like they’re continuing to grow so their reusable software for embedded development brokerage seems to be working despite my initial scepticism.
• The model-driven design for software track of the associated conference could be interesting with Juha-Pekka Tolvanen speaking on Domain-Specific Modelling for full code generation. Juha-Pekka was a speaker at Code Generation 2007 and comes highly recommended.
• One thing I think is new for ESS is a set of free design workshops covering topics such as Model-Based testing, Graphical C programming and static analysis for embedded systems. I’d be interested to hear from anyone who attends these to find out what they’re like.

Finally, if you are planning on attending then do say hello. Me and Danilo Beuche of pure-systems will be demonstrating the pure::variants variant management toolset and it’s associated add-ons for DOORS, Simulink, ClearQuest and CaliberRM on stand 532.