A preliminary evaluation of software inspection tools, with the DESMET method

Software inspections are established means of ensuring quality in software engineering. The traditional paper-based inspections are considered too laborious for widespread usage, and thus tool support for inspection has evolved. In parallel, generic document-processing tools such as Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat have developed support for features that can be utilized in inspections. This study aims to evaluate these two categories of tools with respect to their abilities to support software inspections. For this evaluation, the DESMET method will be employed, and a feature analysis of the tools will be conducted. The results of the evaluation show that the generic document producing tools provide many features applicable to inspections that even the dedicated tools lack. On the other hand, some features, such as support for metrics-based process improvement, are more effectively applied in the tools especially designed to support inspections.