Marco Scotto

Identification of defect-prone classes in telecommunication software systems using design metrics

The goal of this paper is to investigate the relation between object-oriented design choices and defects in software systems, with focus on a real-time telecommunication domain. The design choices are measured using the widely accepted metrics suite proposed by Chidamber and Kemerer for object oriented languages [S.R. Chidamber, C.F. Kemerer, A metrics suite for object oriented design, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 20 (6) (1994) 476-493]. This paper reports the results of an extensive case study, which strongly reinforces earlier, mainly anecdotal, evidence that design aspects related to communication between classes can be used as indicators of the most defect-prone classes. Statistical models applicable for the non-normally distributed count data are used, such as Poisson regression, negative binomial regression, and zero-inflated negative binomial regression. The performances of the models are assessed using correlations, dispersion coefficients and Alberg diagrams. The zero-inflated negative binomial regression model based on response for a class shows the best overall ability to describe the variability of the number of defects in classes.

A non-invasive approach to product metrics collection

Software metrics are useful means in helping software engineers to develop large and complex software systems. In the past years, many software metrics have been proposed in order to represent several different concepts such as complexity, coupling, inheritance, reuse, etc. However, this requires the collection of large volumes of metrics and, without flexible and transparent tools, is nearly impossible to collect data accurately. This paper presents the design and the implementation of a tool for collecting and analyzing product metrics in a non-invasive way.

A relational approach to software metrics

There is still no standardization of software measures and metrics extraction tools have to be updated frequently to handle the changes. A possible solution is represented by using an intermediate abstraction layer to decouple the information extraction process from the use of the information. In this way a metrics researcher do not have to deal with language parsing production concepts such as declarations, class specifiers, and base clauses. This paper presents WebMetrics, an automated tool for software metrics collection. The tool uses, as intermediate layer, a set of intuitive relations to describe the source code structure. These relations are stored in a database in order to calculate metrics directly by performing SQL queries. To test the architecture, we applied the tool to the source code of an opensource project in order to compute CK metrics suite.

Agile Technologies in Open Source Development

The analysis of commonalities and differences between agile technology and open source software development is needed to understand how advancement approaches have evolved and whether they produce concrete benefits in terms of software quality and customer satisfaction. Agile Technologies in Open Source Development explores the overlap between open source and agile technologies, providing valuable strategies for advancement in software. This innovative publication presents a significant resource to assist project managers, engineers, and developers interested in experimenting with new approaches in software expansion.

A Perspective on Non Invasive Software Management

Measurement in software production is essential for understanding, controlling, and improving the software development process. Past research has emphasized the importance of a disciplined data collection process as a prerequisite for a sound, solid, and useful analysis. This article proposes non-invasive, i.e. automatic measurement techniques to instill a continuous and consistent framework to support software project management and to overcome the drawbacks of manual data collection

Lagrein: Visualizing User Requirements and Development Effort

The development of a software project often requires more time and effort than originally expected. However, at end of a project, it is hard to determine which components required more time or were more complex than what was originally planned. In addition, project managers are interested to know what could have happened if some requirements were dropped or if they were implemented in different time sequencing. Lagrein is a tool that supports managers and developers in answering such kind of questions.

An Empirical Study on the Migration to OpenOffice.org in a Public Administration

The aim of the article is to report the results of a migration to Open Source Software (OSS) in one public administration. The migration focuses on the office automation field and, in particular, on the OpenOffice.org suite. We have analysed the transition to OSS considering qualitative and quantitative data collected with the aid of different tools. All the data have been always considered from the point of view of the different stakeholders involved, IT managers, IT technicians, and users. The results of the project have been largely satisfactory. However the results cannot be generalised due to some constraints, like the environment considered and the parallel use of the old solution. Nevertheless, we think that the data collected can be of valuable aid to managers wishing to evaluate a possible transition to OSS.

Non-invasive product metrics collection: an architecture

Software metrics are useful means in helping software engineers to develop large and complex software systems. In the past years, many software metrics have been proposed in order to represent several different concepts such as complexity, coupling, inheritance, reuse, etc. However, this requires the collection of large volumes of metrics and, without flexible and transparent tools, is nearly impossible to collect data accurately. This paper presents the design and the implementation of a tool for collecting and analyzing product metrics in a non-invasive way.

Does XP deliver quality and maintainable code

Extreme Programming aims at delivering working software for less money and still of high quality. It is well known that software maintainability is one of the most important concerns and cost factors of the software industry. The question of this research is whether Extreme Programming intrinsically delivers easily maintainable code or not. We propose a model on how to evaluate the evolution of source code quality and in particular maintainability in an Extreme Programming environment and evaluate it with a small case study. The results obtained from the case study seem to sustain the hypothesis that Extreme Programming enhances quality and in particular maintainability of a software product. Given such promising results, additional experimentation is required to validate and generalize the results of this work.

Lagrein: tracking the software development process

Estimating the real effort spent to implement the requirements of a software system, without superimposing any overhead on the development team, represents a paramount opportunity to keep a software project under control. Lagrein is a software system that tries to address this problem by supporting managers and developers in exploring how a software system has been developed. It supports the visualization of multiple metrics (polymetric views), it links individual requirements to the portions of the source code expected to implement them, it couples the source code with the effort spent in producing it. With a certain level of approximation, Lagrein makes it possible to estimate the effort required to implement each single requirement.