An empirical study of the evolution of a software system

Author

Greenwood, R. Mark ; Warboys, Brian ; Harrison, Rachel ; Henderson, Peter

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Manchester Univ., UK

fYear

1998

fDate

13-16 Oct 1998

Firstpage

293

Lastpage

296

Abstract

The cost-effective and reliable evolution of systems is a significant software engineering challenge. Our approach is based on a combination of product modelling, process modelling and software metrics. We describe an empirical laboratory study following the evolution of three releases of a publicly available exemplar system. Analysis of the metrics which were collected improves our understanding of how a system evolves. Process metrics can provide information about how the product is put together, and product metrics suggest explanations for the development processes observed

Keywords

software maintenance; software metrics; cost-effectiveness; empirical software engineering; process metrics; process modelling; product metrics; product modelling; reliability; software development processes; software engineering; software evolution; software maintenance; software metrics; software releases; software reuse; software system evolution; Computer architecture; Computer science; Costs; Humans; Laboratories; Product design; Software engineering; Software maintenance; Software metrics; Software systems;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Automated Software Engineering, 1998. Proceedings. 13th IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Honolulu, HI

Print_ISBN

0-8186-8750-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ASE.1998.732683

Filename

732683