The Road to Feature Modularity

Modularity of feature representations has been a long standing goal of feature-oriented software development. While some researchers regard feature modules and corresponding composition mechanisms as a modular solution, other researchers have challenged the notion of feature modularity and pointed out that most feature-oriented implementation mechanisms lack proper interfaces and support neither modular type checking nor separate compilation. The authors step back and reflect on the feature-modularity discussion. They distinguish two notions of modularity, cohesion without interfaces and information hiding with interfaces, and point out the different expectations that, they believe, are the root of many heated discussions.