SAK5102 SOFTWARE EVALUATION Semester II 2008/ credits Tuesday 6.30 pm – 9.30 pm (BK1) Assoc. Prof Dr. Abdul Azim Abd Ghani 1

Course Aims  Apply software measurement approach to evaluate resource usage, software product, and software process. 2

Course Outline (1)  Fundamental of Software Measurement  Framework for Software Measurement  Measuring Product Attributes  Measuring Process Attribute  Resource Measurement  Software Metrics Data Collection  Measurement in Practice 3

Reference  Required Text Software Metrics : A rigorous and Practical Approach, 2 nd edition, Norman Fenton and Shari Lawrence Pfleenger, PWS Publishing Company. Research Papers to be distributed as necessary. 4

Assessment  Mid Semester Exam 30%  Final Exam 30%  Assignment 40% 5

Measurement : Examples  Economic measurements to determine price and pay increase  Measurement in radar systems to detect aircraft when direct vision obscured  Measurement in medical system enabling physicians to diagnose illnesses  Height and size measurement to ensure our clothing will fit properly  Many more……… 6

Measurement : Definition  “Measurement is the process by which numbers or symbols are assigned to attributes of entities in the real world in such a way as to describe them according to clearly defined rules”  Entity : an object or an event in the real world  Attribute : feature or property of an entity  Numbers and symbols are abstractions used to reflect perceptions of the real world 7

Examples of entities/attributes  People’s heights  T-shirts' sizes  Temperatures  Number of marbles  Numbers on uniforms  Rank in class 8

Measurement : Issues  The accuracy of a measure depends on the measuring instrument as well as on the definition of the measurement  We can measure an attribute using different scales/units of measurements  What kind of manipulations can we apply to the results of measurements?  Measurements have associated margins of error. Which ones are acceptable and which ones are not? 9

Measurement : How to?  In order to make entities measurable : What entities should be selected? What attributes should be selected? What values should be assigned to the attributes? What shall be the rules attributed to the attributes and their entities? 10

Making Things Measurable  “What is not measurable make measurable” attributable to Galileo Galilei ( )  Measurement makes concepts more visible and therefore more understandable and controllable  Even when it is not clear how to measure an attribute, the act of proposing measures can open a debates that leads to greater understanding 11

Software Engineering  IEEE Computer Society defines software engineering as : “the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software; that is, the application of engineering to software.” (SWEBOK) 12

Software Engineering Activities  Include: managing, costing, planning, modeling, analyzing, specifying, designing, implementing, testing, and maintaining  Applying engineering means that each activity is understood and controlled, such that there are few surprises as the software is specified, designed, built, and maintained! 13

Software Metrics : What?  Software metrics are measures that are used to quantify software, software development resources, and/or software development processes  This includes items which are directly measurable (lines of code, number of html pages), as well items which can only be measured indirectly (software quality) 14

Neglect of SW Measurement in SE  Most software projects fail to : Set measurable targets for software products Understand and quantify the component costs of software projects Quantify or predict the quality of the products we produce Evaluate to see if a new technology will be helpful or not 15

Measurement for Promotion Our new techniques guaranties 100% reliability Build your code with half the staff in a quarter of the time!!!! Our tool improves productivity by 200% Cuts test time by 2/3 16

Objectives for SW Measurement (1)  Every measurement action must be motivated by a particular goal or need that is clearly defined and easily understandable  Measurement objectives must be specific, tied to what the managers, developers and users need to know. 17

Objectives for SW Measurement (2)  For managers : What does each process cost? How productive is the staff ? How good is the code being developed ? Will the users be satisfied with the product? How can we improve? 18

Objectives for SW Measurement (3)  For developers : Are the requirements testable? How we found all the faults? Have we met our product or process goals? What will happen in the future? 19

Objectives for SW Measurement (4)  For users : What do you think? 20

Measurement : Why?  Measurement is important for three basic activities : Understand what is happening during development and maintenance Control what is happening on our projects Improve our processes and products 21

The Scope of SW Measurement  Cost and Effort Estimation  Productivity Measures and Models  Data Collection  Quality Models and measures  Reliability Models  Performance Evaluation and Models  Structural and Complexity Metrics  Capability Maturity Assessment  Management by Metrics  Evaluation of Methods and Tools 22

Reading……..  Chapter 1 Fenton and Pfleenger’s book…. 23