Introduction
- Software metrics and models play a crucial role in software engineering by providing measurable and objective information about software processes and products. Software metrics models enable better planning, control, and continuous improvement in software development.
Definition
- Software metrics are quantitative measures used to evaluate, control, and improve the software development process and the quality of software products. They help managers and developers make informed decisions, estimate effort and cost, monitor progress, and improve software quality.
- Software metrics refer to numerical measures that quantify characteristics of software, software processes, and software products.
Characteristics
- Software Metrics provide a scientific and objective way to assess software development activities instead of relying on intuition.
Objectives
- To estimate the project cost and development effort
- To monitor project progress and productivity
- To assess software quality and reliability
- To improve software development processes
- To support decision-making and risk management
Types of Software Metrics
Process Metrics
- Process metrics are used to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of the software development process.
- These metrics help organizations understand how well their development processes are performing and identify areas for improvement.
- Process metrics help improve the way software is developed.
- Product metrics help assess the quality and performance of the software itself.
- Characteristics of Process Metrics
- Focus on how software is developed
- Help in process improvement
- Support better project planning and control
- Terms of Process Metrics
- Defect Removal Efficiency (DRE): It measures how effectively defects are removed during development.
- Process Yield: It gives the percentage of defects detected before software release.
- Cycle Time: It is the time required to complete a development phase.
- Productivity Metrics: It is the output produced per unit of effort (e.g., function points per person-month).
- Review and Inspection Effectiveness: It measures the success of code and design reviews.
- Importance of Process Metrics
- Improve development efficiency
- Reduce rework and development cost
- Enhance the predictability of schedules
- Support continuous process improvement
Product Metrics
- Product metrics measure the characteristics of the software product itself.
- These metrics help evaluate the quality, performance, and maintainability of the final software system.
- Characteristics of Product Metrics
- It focuses on what is being developed
- It is applied to both intermediate and final products
- It is used to assess software quality
- Terms of Product Metrics
- Size Metrics: Lines of Code (LOC), Function Points (FP)
- Complexity Metrics: Cyclomatic Complexity
- Quality Metrics: Defect density (defects per KLOC)
- Reliability Metrics: Mean Time to Failure (MTTF)
- Maintainability Metrics: Code modularity and documentation quality
- Performance Metrics: Response time, throughput, memory usage
- Importance of Product Metrics
- Help in assessing software quality
- Support maintenance and enhancement decisions
- Improve software reliability and usability
- Enable comparison between different software versions
Software Metrics/Measurement Model
- Software measurement models provide structured ways to estimate, analyze, and predict software attributes such as size, cost, effort, time, and quality.
- Examples of some common Software Measurement Models
- LOC (Lines of Code)Metrics/Model
- This model measures software size based on the number of lines of source code.
- Function Point (FP)Metrics/Model
- This model measures software size based on functionality provided to the user.
- COCOMO (Constructive Cost Model)Metrics/Model
- This model estimates effort, time, and cost based on software size and complexity.
- Halstead’s Software Science Metrics/Model
- This model uses operators and operands to estimate program complexity and effort.
- LOC (Lines of Code)Metrics/Model
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