History of software measurement Zuse H.

Zuse H.
Количество страниц: 31
Язык: Английский
Формат: PDF / RAR

Формат файла: RAR

Measurement in science has a long tradition as described by Lemmerich /LEMM88/. While the measurement of length - the meter - was defined in 1889 /LEMM88/, p.87, the measurement of temperature was more complicated. The graduation of the distance of the fixpoints was introduced by Fahrenheit in 1714 and by Celsius in 1742. Celsius devided the scale of 100 degrees and 0 degrees in hundred equal sectors. But the question was for a long time whether 50C was uniquely defined. Another interesting case is that the measurement of length is always a ratio scale, but temperature can be both an interval (Celsius / Fahrenheit) or a ratio scale (Kelvin).
Today, computers play a primary role in almost every area of our life. The increased importance of software also places more requirements on it. Thus, it is necessary to have precise, predictable, and repeatable control over the software development process and product. Software measures are a tool to measure the quality of software.
The area of software measurement or software engineering measurement, is one of the areas in software engineering where researchers are active since more than thirty years. The area of software measurement is also known as software metrics. There is a confusing situation using the terms software measures or software metrics. Using the terminology of measurement theory /ROBE79/ we use the term measures. In literature the terms metric and measure are used as synonyms. A metric is here not considered in the sense of a metric space, it is considered as: measurement is a mapping of empirical objects to numerical objects by a homomorphism. A homomorphism is a mapping which preserves all relations and structures. Put in other words: software quality should be linearly related to a software measure. This is a basic concept of measurement at all and of software measurement.
Software measure researchers are split into two camps: those who claim software can be measured, and those who say that software can not be analyzed by measurement. In any case, the majority of researchers are concerned about software quality and the need to quantify it. During the past more than one thousand software measures were proposed by researchers and practitioners, and till today more than 5000 papers about software measurement are published. For this reason it is not possible to give a complete overview of the history of software measures. We only discuss some milestones in the development of software measures. An overview of software measurement or of published papers can be found, among others, in the following books or papers: /CONT86/, /GRAD87/, /EJIO91/, /DUMK92/ /MILL88/, /PERL81/, /FENT91/, /FENT90/, /KITC89/, /MOEL93/, /SHEP93/, /SHEP93a/, /JONE91/, /GOOD92/, /SAMA87/,
/GRAD92/, /DEMA82/, /AMI92/, /CARD90/, /HETZ93/, /SHOO83/, /MAYR90/, /SOMM92/, /PRES92/,
/ZUSE91/, /ZUSE94a/, and /ZUSE95a/.