An empirical investigation of an object-oriented software system

This is the post print version of the article. The official published version can be obtained from the link below.This paper describes an empirical investigation into an industrial object-oriented (OO) system comprised of 133,000 lines of C++. The system was a subsystem of a telecommunications product and was developed using the Shlaer-Mellor method. From this study, we found that there was little use of OO constructs such as inheritance and, therefore, polymorphism. It was also found that there was a significant difference in the defect densities between those classes that participated in inheritance structures and those that did not, with the former being approximately three times more defect-prone. We were able to construct useful prediction systems for size and number of defects based upon simple counts such as the number of states and events per class. Although these prediction systems are only likely to have local significance, there is a more general principle that software developers can consider building their own local prediction systems. Moreover, we believe this is possible, even in the absence of the suites of metrics that have been advocated by researchers into OO technology. As a consequence, measurement technology may be accessible to a wider group of potential users

Penerapan Dominance-based Rough Set Approach Dalam Pemeringkatan Kualitas Desain Software Berorientasi Objek

Penerapan Dominance-based Rough Set Approach (DRSA) untuk menentukan peringkat kualitas sejumlah aplikasi berbasis objek telah dipelajari. DRSA diterapkan untuk memformulasikan satu set klasifikasi dimana kualitas software aplikasi digolongkan. Klasifikasi dibentuk berdasarkan hasil pengukuran Metrics of Object Oriented Design (MOOD) terhadap properti software berbasis Java. Pemanfaatan DRSA merupakan metode alternatif untuk menginterpretasikan nilai-nilai metrics dan menentukan sebuah nilai kuantitatif yang merepresentasikan kualitasnya relatif terhadap software yang lain. Studi eksperimental menunjukkan bahwa akurasi hasil DRSA bergantung pada jumlah sample aplikasi yang dijadikan referensi dalam menurunkan satu set definisi aturan untuk mengklasifikasikan properti software. Sample aplikasi dalam eksperimen diambil dari library Java yang telah teruji modularity, USAbility dan maintainability-nya. Secara umum, hasil eksperimen menyimpulkan bahwa DRSA dapat diterapkan untuk menentukan peringkat kualitas relatif dari sejumlah aplikasi dalam populasi sample. Application of Dominance-based Rough Set Approach (DRSA) to rank the quality of a number of object-based applications have been studied. DRSA applied to formulate a set of software quality classification in which the application is classified. Classification established by the results of measurements Metrics of Object Oriented Design (MOOD) against the property of Java-based software. Utilization of DRSA is an alternative method for interpreting the values of metrics and determine a quantitative value that represents the quality relative to other software. Experimental studies indicate that the accuracy of the DRSA depends on the number of sample applications that are used as reference in the definition set down one rule for classifying software properties. Sample applications in the experiment was taken from a proven library Java modularity, USAbility and maintainability of his. In general, the experimental results concluded that the DRSA can be applied to rank the relative quality of a number of applications in the sample population

Comparison Study and Review on Object-Oriented Metrics

The best elucidations to software development problems are regularly touted as object-oriented processes. The popularity of object-oriented design metrics is essential in software engineering for measuring the software complexity, estimating size, quality and project efforts. There are various approaches through which we can find the software cost estimation and predicates on various kinds of deliverable items. Object-oriented metrics assures to reduce cost and the maintenance effort by serving as early predictors to estimate software faults. Such an early quantification augments the quality of the final software. This paper reviews object-oriented metrics. A comparison table is maintained via which we can analyze the difference between all the object-oriented metrics effectively

The Technical, Non-technical Issues and the Challenges of Migration to Free and Open Source Software

Abstract Interest has been raised over software that has been developed not by dedicated software companies but by groups of independent programmers with different level of experience who collaborate over the Internet and offer the fruits of their labor free. Open source software communities have successfully developed many software pieces and suggest Free Open Source Software (FOSS) as a solution for a lot of computing problems, although most computer users only use proprietary applications. Many proprietary software users claim that open source software invites problems, such as, generating software codes that could be vulnerable to hackers and prone to errors. This paper presents an overview of the real issues and challenges for the migration to free and open source software (FOSS) and suggests some important criteria for assessing migration issues and challenges. Migratory problems may be divided into technical and nontechnical issues and challenges. The technical issues and challenges include performance, technical infrastructure, usability, integrity, support availability, security, information flow control, data migration, flexibility and ease of use and management and maintenance of OSS, whereas the non-technical issues and challenges include organizational culture, human factors (staff skills) and legal issues

A Review of Metrics and Modeling Techniques in Software Fault Prediction Model Development

This paper surveys different software fault predictions progressed through different data analytic techniques reported in the software engineering literature. This study split in three broad areas; (a) The description of software metrics suites reported and validated in the literature. (b) A brief outline of previous research published in the development of software fault prediction model based on various analytic techniques. This utilizes the taxonomy of analytic techniques while summarizing published research. (c) A review of the advantages of using the combination of metrics. Though, this area is comparatively new and needs more research efforts

New Inheritance Complexity Metrics for Object-Oriented Software Systems: An Evaluation with Weyuker's Properties

Two inheritance complexity metrics, one at class level CCI (Class Complexity due to Inheritance) and another at program level ACI (Average Complexity of a program due to Inheritance), have been proposed for object-oriented software systems. These proposed metrics are evaluated with Weyuker's properties and compared with other well known object-oriented inheritance metrics. It has been found that the proposed metrics better represent the complexity, due to inheritance, of a class and a program. Weyuker's property 7 (Significance of Permutation) has received a negative response regarding its applicability to object-oriented software metrics. It has been observed that this property is not satisfied by any of the object-oriented inheritance metrics proposed so far. Contrary to past beliefs, the relevance of this property to object-oriented systems has been brought out in this paper. Examples with C++ code are also presented to support the applicability of this property

Analysis of relationship between software metrics and process models

This thesis studies the correlation between software process models and software metrics. To support our studies we have defined a Process - Metric Evaluation Framework and derived an evaluation template from it. The template served as a basic tool in studding the relationships between various process models, artifacts and software metrics. We have evaluated a number of process models according to our template and have identified suitable software metrics. We have also recommended a root cause analysis approach at various points of the process models. The suggested software metrics can be derived from various product and process artifacts. They can be used to curb the risks generated at each phase of the development process, identify issues, and do better planning and project management. The evaluation template can also be used to evaluate other models and identify effective metrics