Alain Abran 
Software Metrics and Software Metrology 

Most of the software measures currently proposed to the industry bring few real benefits to either software managers or developers. This book looks at the classical metrology concepts from science and engineering, using them as criteria to propose an approach to analyze the design of current software measures and then design new software measures (illustrated with the design of a software measure that has been adopted as an ISO measurement standard). The book includes several case studies analyzing strengths and weaknesses of some of the software measures most often quoted. It is meant for software quality specialists and process improvement analysts and managers.

Table of Content

Foreword vii

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xvii

About the Author xix

PART 1: Key Concepts for the Design of Software Measures
1

1 INTRODUCTION 3

2 FROM MEASUREMENT METHODS TO QUANTITATIVE MODELS: A MEASUREMENT
CONTEXT MODEL 17

3 METROLOGY AND QUALITY CRITERIA IN SOFTWARE MEASUREMENT 47

4 QUANTIFICATION AND MEASUREMENT ARE NOT THE SAME! 67

5 THE DESIGN OF SOFTWARE MEASUREMENT METHODS 99

PART 2: Some Popular Software Measures: How Good Are They?
129

6 CYCLOMATIC COMPLEXITY NUMBER: ANALYSIS OF ITS DESIGN 131

7 HALSTEAD’S METRICS: ANALYSIS OF THEIR DESIGNS 145

8 FUNCTION POINTS: ANALYSIS OF THEIR DESIGN 161

9 USE CASE POINTS: ANALYSIS OF THEIR DESIGN 191

10 ISO 9126: ANALYSIS OF QUALITY MODELS AND MEASURES 205

PART 3: The Design of COSMIC – ISO 19761 229

11 COSMIC: DESIGN OF AN INITIAL PROTOTYPE 231

12 COSMIC: SCALING UP AND INDUSTRIALIZATION 247

PART 4: Other Issues in the Design of Software Measures
267

13 CONVERTIBILITY ACROSS MEASUREMENT METHODS 269

14 DESIGN OF STANDARD ETALONS: THE NEXT FRONTIER IN SOFTWARE
MEASUREMENT 281

Appendix A: List of Acronyms 297

Appendix B: Glossary of Terms in Software Measurement 299

Appendix C: References 305

Index 313

About the author

ALAIN ABRAN, Ph D, is a Professor and the Director of the Software Engineering Research Laboratory at École de technologie supérieure, Université du Québec (Canada). Dr. Abran is a coeditor of the Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge. He has also been actively involved in software engineering standardization as the international secretary for ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7 – Software and System Engineering. Dr. Abran has close to twenty years of industry experience in information systems development and software engineering.