Software metrics
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Software measurement is a quantified attribute (see also: measurement) of a characteristic of a software product or the software process. It is a discipline within software engineering. The process of software measurement is defined and governed by ISO Standard ISO 15939 (software measurement process).
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The primary measurement of software is size, specifically functional size. The generic principles of functional size are described in the ISO/IEC 14143. [1] Software size is principally measured in function points. It can also be measured in lines of code, or specifically, source lines of code (SLOC) which is functional code excluding comments. Whilst measuring SLOC is interesting, it is more an indication of effort than functionality. Two developers could approach a functional challenge using different techniques, and one might need only write a few lines of code, and the other might need to write many times more lines to achieve the same functionality. The most reliable method for measuring software size is code agnostic, from the user's point of view - in function points.
One method of software measurement is metrics that are analyzed against the code itself. These are called software metrics and including simple metrics, such as counting the number of lines in a single file, the number of files in an application, the number of functions in a file, etc. Such measurements have become a common software development practice. [2]
There are also more detailed metrics that help measure things like software complexity, Halstead, cohesion, and coupling.
Software testing is the act of examining the artifacts and the behavior of the software under test by validation and verification. Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to appreciate and understand the risks of software implementation. Test techniques include, but are not necessarily limited to:
In software engineering and development, a software metric is a standard of measure of a degree to which a software system or process possesses some property. Even if a metric is not a measurement, often the two terms are used as synonyms. Since quantitative measurements are essential in all sciences, there is a continuous effort by computer science practitioners and theoreticians to bring similar approaches to software development. The goal is obtaining objective, reproducible and quantifiable measurements, which may have numerous valuable applications in schedule and budget planning, cost estimation, quality assurance, testing, software debugging, software performance optimization, and optimal personnel task assignments.
Source lines of code (SLOC), also known as lines of code (LOC), is a software metric used to measure the size of a computer program by counting the number of lines in the text of the program's source code. SLOC is typically used to predict the amount of effort that will be required to develop a program, as well as to estimate programming productivity or maintainability once the software is produced.
In the context of software engineering, software quality refers to two related but distinct notions:
ISO/IEC 9126Software engineering — Product quality was an international standard for the evaluation of software quality. It has been replaced by ISO/IEC 25010:2011.
Safety integrity level (SIL) is defined as the relative level of risk-reduction provided by a safety function, or to specify a target level of risk reduction. In simple terms, SIL is a measurement of performance required for a safety instrumented function (SIF).
IEC 61508 is an international standard published by the International Electrotechnical Commission consisting of methods on how to apply, design, deploy and maintain automatic protection systems called safety-related systems. It is titled Functional Safety of Electrical/Electronic/Programmable Electronic Safety-related Systems.
The function point is a "unit of measurement" to express the amount of business functionality an information system provides to a user. Function points are used to compute a functional size measurement (FSM) of software. The cost of a single unit is calculated from past projects.
The International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG) is a US-based organization with worldwide chapters of Function point analysis metric software users. It is a non-profit, member-governed organization founded in 1986.
Software sizing or Software size estimation is an activity in software engineering that is used to determine or estimate the size of a software application or component in order to be able to implement other software project management activities. Size is an inherent characteristic of a piece of software just like weight is an inherent characteristic of a tangible material.
A functional specification in systems engineering and software development is a document that specifies the functions that a system or component must perform.
The MK II Method is one of the software sizing methods in functional point group of measurements. This is a method for analysis and measurement of information processing applications based on end user functional view of the system. The MK II Method is one of five currently recognized ISO standards for Functionally sizing software.
Weighted Micro Function Points (WMFP) is a modern software sizing algorithm which is a successor to solid ancestor scientific methods as COCOMO, COSYSMO, maintainability index, cyclomatic complexity, function points, and Halstead complexity. It produces more accurate results than traditional software sizing methodologies, while requiring less configuration and knowledge from the end user, as most of the estimation is based on automatic measurements of an existing source code.
Parasoft C/C++test is an integrated set of tools for testing C and C++ source code that software developers use to analyze, test, find defects, and measure the quality and security of their applications. It supports software development practices that are part of development testing, including static code analysis, dynamic code analysis, unit test case generation and execution, code coverage analysis, regression testing, runtime error detection, requirements traceability, and code review. It's a commercial tool that supports operation on Linux, Windows, and Solaris platforms as well as support for on-target embedded testing and cross compilers.
The Unified Code Counter (UCC) is a comprehensive software lines of code counter produced by the USC Center for Systems and Software Engineering. It is available to the general public as open source code and can be compiled with any standard ANSI C++ compiler.
SNAP is the acronym for "Software Non-functional Assessment Process," a measurement of the size of the software derived by quantifying the non-functional user requirements for the software. The SNAP sizing method complements ISO/IEC 20926:2009, which defines a method for the sizing of functional software user requirements. SNAP is a product of the International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG), and is sized using the “Software Non-functional Assessment Process (SNAP) Assessment Practices Manual” (APM) now in version 2.4. Reference “IEEE 2430-2019-IEEE Trial-Use Standard for Non-Functional Sizing Measurements,” published October 19, 2019. Also reference ISO standard “Software engineering — Trial use standard for software non-functional sizing measurements,”, published October 2021. For more information about SNAP please visit YouTube and search for "IFPUG SNAP;" this will provide a series of videos overviewing the SNAP methodology.
CAST is a technology corporation headquartered in New York City and in France, near Paris. It was founded in 1990 in Paris, France, by Vincent Delaroche.
COSMIC functional size measurement is a method to measure a standard functional size of a piece of software. COSMIC is an acronym of COmmon Software Measurement International Consortium, a voluntary organization that has developed the method and is still expanding its use to more software domains.
The Simple Function Point (SFP) method is a lightweight Functional Measurement Method.
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