SOFTWARE—PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCE Softw. Pract. Exper. 2000; 30:1025–1046 Feature-based approach to object-oriented engineering of applications for reuse Kwanwoo Lee 1∗,† , Kyo C. Kang 1 , Wonsuk Chae 1 and Byoung Wook Choi 2 1 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), San 31 Pohang, Kyoungbuk 790-784, Korea 2 Division of Mechanical and Control Engineering, Sunmoon University, 100 Asan-si, Chung-nam 336-840, Korea ‡ SUMMARY Object-oriented technology is gaining popularity among software engineers with the goal of building reusable and adaptable software. Unfortunately, however, most methods introduced so far are not domain- oriented and do not address the issue of reuse directly. For these methods, software reuse is not the primary goal; it is only a by-product. The feature-oriented reuse method, FORM, is extended in this paper for improving the object-oriented engineering of applications for reuse. FORM concentrates on analyzing and modeling commonalities and differences in the applications of a given domain in terms of capability, operating environment, domain technology, and implementation technique features. These features are used to systematically derive objects that are tied to the features, and to develop reusable and adaptable domain architectures. We found that FORM facilitates analysis of variability (and commonality) of software before engineering and implementation start, and with this understanding, adaptability and reusability can be built into software. Feature modeling has been found to be an effective method for identifying and modeling reusable objects. Copyright  2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. KEY WORDS: feature-orientation; object-orientation; domain analysis; object modeling; reference architecture; software reuse INTRODUCTION Object-oriented technology is thought to be a promising way of reusing and adapting software. The promise for software reuse is based on the belief that object-oriented technology allows software reuse ∗ Correspondence to: Kwanwoo Lee, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, San 31 Hyoja-Dong, Pohang, Kyoungbuk 790-784, Korea. † E-mail: kwlee@postech.ac.kr ‡ Also affiliated with LG Industrial Systems Co, Ltd. Received 22 June 1999 Copyright  2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Revised 24 February 2000 Accepted 24 February 2000