Full Description
This is one of the shorter books in the 21 volume Practitioner Book Series, but this is entirely appropriate for a text on the ubiquitous topic of Quality. The book is written in a concise, precise no-nonsense style by two interna tional authors. They are supported in their approach by relevant personal practical experience and by peer-review of other researchers obtained whilst disseminating their research in the academic literature. The authors base their book around their Objective/Principles/ Attributes (OPA) Framework, developed in the first place for assessment and prediction of software quality. After OPA was developed as a procedure for evaluating software development methodologies, it was expanded to include software quality measurement with the inclusion of statistical indicators and a systematic basis for deriving them. The OPA is an holistic approach to soft ware quality and prediction. The approach has been validated through experience gained on a 4-year on-site project, which has also led to improve ments to the framework.
Contents
1. Motivating Software Quality Meaurement.- 1.1 Software Measurement: Why, What, How and When.- 1.2 Frequent and Hidden Pitfalls.- 1.3 The Rationale of an Holistic Approach.- 1.4 Background Efforts Contributing to the Book Content.- 1.5 Purpose and Scope of the Book.- 2. Foundations for a Comprehensive Approach to Software Quality Assessment.- 2.1 Establishing a Quality Focus.- 2.2 The Objectives/Principles/Attributes (OPA) Framework.- 2.3 Software Quality Indicators.- 2.4 Influences of the Process Model.- 2.5 Establishing Measurement Goals: Assessment or Prediction.- 3. An OPA Measurement Program.- 3.1 Accommodating the Organizational Process Model.- 3.2 Measurement Program Responsibilities.- 3.3 Derivation of Software Quality Indicators.- 3.4 Interpretation of SQI Results.- 3.5 Decisions and Actions.- 4. Process Measurement.- 4.1 The Inherent Difficulty of Process Measurement.- 4.2 Indicator Derivation and Distinctions.- 4.3 Interpretation, Decisions and Actions.- 5. Product Measurement: Documentation.- 5.1 Motivation and Distinctions.- 5.2 The Characteristics of High Quality in Documentation.- 5.3 Measurement Approaches.- 5.4 Interpretation, Decisions and Actions.- 6. Product Measurement: Code.- 6.1 Indicator Distinction and Derivation.- 6.2 Attributes of Code Quality.- 6.3 Automated Collection of Code Indicators.- 6.4 Interpretation, Decisions and Actions.- 7. An Examination of Indicator Values and Their Aggregation.- 7.1 Using and Interpreting Indicator Values.- 7.2 Integrating Code, Documentation and Process Quality Indicators in a Software Quality Measurement Program.- 8. Prediction and Assessment: Differences in Goals.- 8.1 Effects of Process Models.- 8.2 Software Reuse.- 8.3 Sustaining Responsibilities and Quality Measurement.- 8.4 The Quality Database and Validity of Indicators.- 9. Software Quality: Views and Purviews.- 9.1 Software Quality: Holy Grail or Eternal Enigma?.- 9.2 What is "Quality"?.- 9.3 What about Software?.- 9.4 The Evolving Views of Software Quality.- 9.5 Software Quality: A Standard View.- References.
