Potential Errors and Test Assessment in Software Product Line Engineering

Software product lines (SPL) are a method for the development of variant-rich software systems. Compared to non-variable systems, testing SPLs is extensive due to an increasingly amount of possible products. Different approaches exist for testing SPLs, but there is less research for assessing the quality of these tests by means of error detection capability. Such test assessment is based on error injection into correct version of the system under test. However to our knowledge, potential errors in SPL engineering have never been systematically identified before. This article presents an overview over existing paradigms for specifying software product lines and the errors that can occur during the respective specification processes. For assessment of test quality, we leverage mutation testing techniques to SPL engineering and implement the identified errors as mutation operators. This allows us to run existing tests against defective products for the purpose of test assessment. From the results, we draw conclusions about the error-proneness of the surveyed SPL design paradigms and how quality of SPL tests can be improved.Comment: In Proceedings MBT 2015, arXiv:1504.0192

A Framework for Process Assessment of Software Product Line

Software product line has emerged as an attractive phenomenon within organizations dealing with software development process. It involves assembly of products from existing core assets, commonly known as components, and continuous growth in the core assets as production proceeds. Organizations trying to incorporate the concept of software product line to reduce development time and cost require certain rules to be followed for successful development and management, they also require a direct procedure to evaluate the current maturity level of the process. In this work certain rules for developing and managing a software product line are put forward. Additionally, a fuzzy logic based software product line process assessment tool (SPLPAT) has been designed and implemented on the basis of developed rules for software product line process assessment. SPLPAT can be used to assess the process maturity level of software product line, and it provides an opportunity to handle imprecision and uncertainty present in software process variables. Four case studies were conducted to validate the framework, and results show that SPLPAT provides a direct mechanism to evaluate current software product line process maturity level within an organization. The results of the developed software product line process assessment approach were compared with the existing CMM-level of the organization in order to evaluate the reliability of the presented approach and to find out how effectively an organization can execute software product line process when it has already achieved a certain CMM level

An Organizational Maturity Model of Software Product Line Engineering

Software product line engineering is an inter-disciplinary concept. It spans the dimensions of business, architecture, process, and the organization. Some of the potential benefits of this approach include cost reduction, improvements in product quality and a decrease in product development time. The increasing popularity of software product line engineering in the software industry necessitates a process maturity evaluation methodology. Accordingly, this paper presents an organizational maturity model of software product line engineering for evaluating the maturity of organizational dimension. The model assumes that organizational theories, behavior, and management play a critical role in the institutionalization of software product line engineering within an organization. Assessment questionnaires and a rating methodology comprise the framework of this model. The objective and design of the questionnaires are to collect information about the software product line engineering process from the dual perspectives of organizational behavior and management. Furthermore, we conducted two case studies and reported the assessment results using the organizational maturity model presented in this paper

An Architecture Maturity Model of Software Product Line

Software architecture has been a key research area in the software engineering community due to its significant role in creating high-quality software. The trend of developing product lines rather than single products has made the software product line a viable option in the industry. Software product line architecture (SPLA) is regarded as one of the crucial components in the product lines, since all of the resulting products share this common architecture. The increased popularity of software product lines demands a process maturity evaluation methodology. Consequently,this paper presents an architecture process maturity model for software product line engineering to evaluate the current maturity of the product line architecture development process in an organization. Assessment questionnaires and a rating methodology comprise the framework of this model. The objective of the questionnaires is to collect information about the SPLA development process. Thus, in general this work contributes towards the establishment of a comprehensive and unified strategy for the process maturity evaluation of software product line engineering. Furthermore, we conducted two case studies and reported the assessment results, which show the maturity of the architecture development process in two organizations

Research in software allocation for advanced manned mission communications and tracking systems

An assessment of the planned processing hardware and software/firmware for the Communications and Tracking System of the Space Station Freedom (SSF) was performed. The intent of the assessment was to determine the optimum distribution of software/firmware in the processing hardware for maximum throughput with minimum required memory. As a product of the assessment process an assessment methodology was to be developed that could be used for similar assessments of future manned spacecraft system designs. The assessment process was hampered by changing requirements for the Space Station. As a result, the initial objective of determining the optimum software/firmware allocation was not fulfilled, but several useful conclusions and recommendations resulted from the assessment. It was concluded that the assessment process would not be completely successful for a system with changing requirements. It was also concluded that memory requirements and hardware requirements were being modified to fit as a consequence of the change process, and although throughput could not be quantitized, potential problem areas could be identified. Finally, inherent flexibility of the system design was essential for the success of a system design with changing requirements. Recommendations resulting from the assessment included development of common software for some embedded controller functions, reduction of embedded processor requirements by hardwiring some Orbital Replacement Units (ORUs) to make better use of processor capabilities, and improvement in communications between software development personnel to enhance the integration process. Lastly, a critical observation was made regarding the software integration tasks did not appear to be addressed in the design process to the degree necessary for successful satisfaction of the system requirements

Quality Assessment and Prediction in Software Product Lines

At the heart of product line development is the assumption that through structured reuse later products will be of a higher quality and require less time and effort to develop and test. This thesis presents empirical results from two case studies aimed at assessing the quality aspect of this claim and exploring fault prediction in the context of software product lines. The first case study examines pre-release faults and change proneness of four products in PolyFlow, a medium-sized, industrial software product line; the second case study analyzes post-release faults using pre-release data over seven releases of four products in Eclipse, a very large, open source software product line.;The goals of our research are (1) to determine the association between various software metrics, as well as their correlation with the number of faults at the component/package level; (2) to characterize the fault and change proneness of components/packages at various levels of reuse; (3) to explore the benefits of the structured reuse found in software product lines; and (4) to evaluate the effectiveness of predictive models, built on a variety of products in a software product line, to make accurate predictions of pre-release software faults (in the case of PolyFlow) and post-release software faults (in the case of Eclipse).;The research results of both studies confirm, in a software product line setting, the findings of others that faults (both pre- and post-release) are more highly correlated to change metrics than to static code metrics, and are mostly contained in a small set of components/ packages. The longitudinal aspect of our research indicates that new products do benefit from the development and testing of previous products. The results also indicate that pre-existing components/packages, including the common components/packages, undergo continuous change, but tend to sustain low fault densities. However, this is not always true for newly developed components/packages. Finally, the results also show that predictions of pre-release faults in the case of PolyFlow and post-release faults in the case of Eclipse can be done accurately from pre-release data, and furthermore, that these predictions benefit from information about additional products in the software product lines

ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT OF ACADEMIC STUDENT INFORMATION SYSTEM BASED ON WEB USING PHP AND MYSQL IN SMA N 1 TAYU

This research aims to produce software Academic Student Information System Using Web-Based PHP and MySQL in SMA N 1 Tayu and test the feasibility. The information system has been tested to be able to process general academic data such as data administrator, administration, principal, homeroom, teachers, and students. In this study also determined the level of proprietary software that was created to test the feasibility of information systems in SMA N 1 Tayu. This type of research is the Research and Development. The study measures the : potential problems, requirements analysis, design, implementation, validation specialists, product revision, user testing, revision of the product, mass publications. Respondents trial there were 28 students of class XII and 2 teachers IPA2 subjects SMA N 1 Tayu. Method of data collection with the literature and questionnaires. The method used to analyze the data is descriptive analysis techniques such as quantitative scores and percentages on a predetermined grading scale. The results showed that the system is able to process information in general academic data such as data administrator, administration, principal, homeroom, teachers, and students. Feasibility level assessment software by experts indicate that the information system is very feasible. Based on the assessment of students and teachers, the feasibility of information systems is very decent. Percentage viability by software engineering experts and users in order to obtain a percentage of 91.5% and 86.358%. It can be concluded that the information system has good quality and very decent for student academic data processing. Keywords : Information Systems, Academic, Web Based, Web, PHP, SQL

Safety critical software process assessment: how MDevSPICE® addresses the challenge of integrating compliance and capability

One of the primary outcomes of a software process assessment is visibility of the capability of a software process which among other things, informs us of the ability of a process to deliver consistent product quality levels. In safety critical domains, such as the medical device sector, high product quality – and particularly high product safety - is an important consideration. To address this safety concern, the medical device sector traditionally employs audits to determine compliance to software process standards and guidance. Unlike an audit which results in a pass/fail outcome, an assessment provides a process capability profile which identifies areas for improvement and enables a comparison with broader best practice. MDevSPICE® integrates the various medical device software standards and guidance within the infrastructure of a SPICE assessment model, thus encompassing aspects of compliance and capability. This paper describes some of the key enablers of this integration