RESUMEN

Point: Being Proactive Pays Off Software product lines represent a paradigm on the rise in software engineering that comes with true order-of-magnitude improvements in cost, schedule, and quality. As the field grows and matures, case studies are becoming more plentiful and beneficial. Books, papers, conferences, workshops, and special issues of magazines such as this one provide ideas that can inspire us. Counterpoint: Eliminating the Adoption Barrier Stories of successful software product line deployments often read like epic adventures. In the end, there is triumph of inspirational proportions, but along the journey there is risk, hardship, sacrifice, heroes, antagonists, love lost, love found, and fortuitous events of both happy and tragic consequences. For example, for Cummins to achieve its impressive software product line successes, it stopped all product deployments for six months while it rearchitected its engine control software, support technology, organizational charts, and processes. Imagine the consequences if, after an extended production shutdown, unanticipated events had led to project failure.