Software Engineering Features - Models, Methods, Tools, Standards, and Metrics
In recent decades software has become ubiquitous. Almost all modern engineered systems include significant software subsystems; this includes systems in the transportation, finance, education, healthcare, legal, military, and business sectors. Along with the increase in software utility, capability, cost, and size there has been a corresponding growth in methods, models, tools, metrics and standards, which support software engineering.
Chapter 10 of the SWEBOK discusses modeling principles and types, and the methods and tools that are used to develop, analyze, implement, and verify the models. The other SWEBOK chapters on the software development phases (e.g., Software Design) discuss methods and tools specific to the phase. Table 1 identifies software engineering features for different life-cycle phases. The table is not meant to be complete; it simply provide examples. In Part 2 of the SEBoK there is a discussion of models and the following is one of the definitions offered: “an abstraction of a system, aimed at understanding, communicating, explaining, or designing aspects of interest of that system” (Dori 2002). For the purposes of Table 1 we extend the definition of a model to some aspect of the software system or it development. So as an example, we list “Project Plan” as a model in the Software Management area. The idea is that the Project Plan provides a model of how the project is going to be carried out: the project team organization, the process to be used, the work to be done, the project schedule, and the resources needed.
Table 1: SWE Features
Life-Cycle Activity | Models | Methods & Tools | Standards |
---|---|---|---|
Software Management |
|
|
|
Software Requirements |
|
|
|
Software Design |
|
|
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Software Construction |
|
|
|
Software Testing |
|
|
|
Software Maintenance |
|
|
|
A software metric is a quantitative measure of the degree a software system, component, or process possesses a given attribute. Because of the abstract nature of software and special problems with software schedule, cost, and quality, data collection and the derived metrics are an essential part of software engineering. This is evidenced by the repeated reference to measurement and metrics in the SWEBOK. Table 1 describes software metrics that are collected and used in different areas of software development. As in Table 1 in the Software Engineering Features - Models, Methods, Tools, and Standards article, the list is not meant to be complete, but to illustrate the type and range of measures used in practice.
Table 1: Software Metrics *
Category | Metrics |
---|---|
Management Metrics |
|
Software Quality Metrics |
|
Software Requirements Metrics |
|
Software Design Metrics |
|
Software Maintenance and Operation |
|
*Note: Even though the LOC metric is widely used, using it comes with some problems and concerns: different languages, styles, and standards can lead to different LOC counts for the same functionality; there are a variety of ways to define and count LOC– source LOC, logical LOC, with or without comment lines, etc.; and automatic code generation has reduced the effort required to produce LOC.
References
Works Cited
Dori, D. 2003. "Conceptual Modeling and System Architecting." Communications of the ACM, 46(10), pp. 62-65
[IEEE Bourque, P. and R.E. Fairley (eds.). 2014. Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK). Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society. Available at: http://www.Swebok.org.
[IEEE 828] IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Standard for Computer Configuration Management in Systems and Software Engineering, IEEE Std 828- 2012, 20012.
[IEEE 829] IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Standard for Software and System Test Documentation, IEEE Std 829- 2008, 2008.
[IEEE 830] IEEE Computer Society, Recommended Practice for Software Requirements Specifications, IEEE Std 830-1998, 1998.
[IEEE 1008] IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Standard for Software Unit Testing, IEEE Std 1008-1987, 1987.
[IEEE 1012] — IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Standard for System and Software Verification and Validation. IEEE Std 1012-2002, 2012.
[IEEE 1016] — IEEE Computer Society, Recommended Practice for Software Design Descriptions. IEEE Std 1016-2002, 2002.
[IEEE 1058] IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Standard for Software Project Plans, IEEE Std 1058-1998, 1998.
[IEEE 1219] IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Standard for Software Maintenance, IEEE Std 1219-1998, 1998.
[IEEE 1540] IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Standard for Risk Management, IEEE Std 1540-2001, 2001.
[IEEE 12207] IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Standard for Systems and Software Engineering —Software Life Cycle Processes, IEEE Std 12207-2008. 2008.
[IEEE 14764] IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Standard for Software Engineering - Software Life Cycle Processes - Maintenance. IEEE Std 14764-2006. 2006
[IEEE 42010] IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Standard for Systems and Software Engineering — Architecture Description, IEEE Std 42010-2011, 2011.
Additional References
McConnell, Steve. 2009. Code Complete,. 2nf Ed. Microsoft Press.
Moore, James. 1997. Software Engineering Standards: A User's Road Map. Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Press.
Sommerville, I. 2010. Software Engineering. 9th Ed. Boston, MA, USA: Addison Wesley.
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