Software Design Quality Research Articles

Design Assessment Indicator for Object Oriented Software

Object-oriented paradigm emerged and attracted increasing support throughout the software engineering profession and also provided the definition of new classes of objects that inherit much of their behaviour from previously defined classes. It is mostly unclear as what design quality really is involved in constructing a design that confines the requirements and limitation necessary to be used. Even qualified professionals may never become expert designers. All professionals learn strategies and techniques for improving their design approaches through applying values, extensive experience, opinion and lessons learned from other designers. Software design is an essential cost driver in software development, it not only causes the cost of its own formation, but it also strongly influences the cost of implementation and maintenance. The design phase takes only 5–10% of the total effort (over the whole software life cycle), but a large part (up to 80%) of the total effort is taken for improving design decisions or structure Even if the initial design is good enough for that moment, there may be difficulties when attempting to make changes and extensions during the maintenance phase. The goal of this work is to develop a model that provides a relevant interpretation of measurement results when applied to the investigation of object-oriented software design. The research proposes a design phase quality model to assess the design of any object-oriented system. The research also focusses on analyzing a set of metrics, which has a direct influence on the quality of the software and creating a design phase tool based on Java that can be used to validate the object-oriented projects against these metrics. For the proposed model, new metrics and some well-known metrics were adopted and validated. The analysis was carried out on a set of real time projects designed using Unified Modeling Language, which were used as test cases. Finally, the model presents valuable indications to the designers to validate their quality of software design. The design assessment indicator can also help to compare the design alternatives by evaluating each alternative and comparing its results.

Software Process versus Design Quality: Tug of War?

Software processes and design quality are inextricably intertwined. So, developers must consider their impact on each other to ensure a high-quality design.

Quantifying Reuse in OSS

Reuse is an established software development practice, whose benefits have attracted the attention of researchers and practitioners. In order for software reuse to advance from an opportunistic activity to a well-defined, systematic state of practice, the reuse phenomenon should be empirically studied in a real-world environment. To this end, OSS projects consist a fitting context for this purpose. In this paper, the authors aim at assessing the: (a) strategy and intensity of reuse activities in OSS development, (b)effect of reuse activities on design quality, (c) modification of reuse decisions from a chronological viewpoint and (d) effect of these modifications on software design quality. In order to achieve these goals, the authors performed a large-scale embedded multi-case study on 1,111 Java projects, extracted from Google Code repository. The results of the case study provide a valuable insight on reuse processes in OSS development, that can be exploited by both researchers and practitioners.

The Defect Management Model Design Based on the Project

The article describes that defect management takes an important effect on developing software project. The general project management models based on defect management has been designed , which on the basis of analyses requirement and workflow of defect management. Referencing the module, project development team can develop defect management software, and by which the team can improve the efficiency of software development and design quality objective.

DEVELOPMENT OF A NOVEL OBJECT ORIENTED COHESION METRIC

Class cohesion is considered as one of the most important software quality assessment. Unfortunately, most of cohesion metrics that have been developed do not consider the different intersections among class elements in measuring class cohesion. This paper introduces a novel class cohesion metric which considers the different cohesion intersections. The proposed cohesion metric is tested on more than 35K classes from 16 open-source projects. Experimental results show that the proposed cohesion metric achieves a higher discrimination power along with a vast difference compared with other competitive and well known cohesion metrics. Therefore, it is highly recommended to use the proposed metric for evaluating the software design quality.

Software Engineering Analysis and Practice of Information System

Based upon the summary of software engineering, this paper sets forth the engineering practice content of application software of information system, and puts forward the work emphases, such as promoting the capability of software demonstration, improving the quality of software design, emphasizing the application of software reuse, enhancing the capability of software test and intensifying technical configuration management. Thenceforth a primary prospect is presented.

Current techniques and future trends in embedded system's virtualization

SUMMARYTraditionally, virtualization has been adopted by enterprise industry to make better use of the general purpose processors (single and multicore) besides improving the utilization of existing computational resources, especially in data centers. Until recently, its use in embedded systems (ESs) seemed to be a distant, unnecessary, and unfeasible reality. However, with the rise of each more powerful multiprocessed ESs, typically implemented as multiprocessor system‐on‐chip, virtualization has become a very promising technique to achieve and improve functionalities in future multiprocessor system‐on‐chips. One of the main advantages of virtualizing ESs is to improve the software design quality because legacy software can be reused along with newer applications. Also, we have the classic use cases, such as allowing several operating systems (OSs) to work in the same physical resource, simultaneously. Still, we can provide more secure ESs by splitting the system into user application OS and security certified OS, for instance. Moreover, depending on the way that embedded virtualization is employed, it may be even possible to reduce manufacturing costs and energy consumption levels. However, it is well understood that although ESs deal with increasingly more powerful solutions, they are still far more restricted than general purpose computers, especially in terms of area, memory size, and power consumption. In this article, we provide an extensive analysis of what is being currently offered as embedded virtualization solution, the pros and cons, besides presenting an innovative proposal regarding virtualization for restricted embedded architectures and its possible advantages. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Defect proneness estimation and feedback approach for software design quality improvement

Context Modern software engineering demands professionals and researchers to proactively and collectively work towards exploring and experimenting viable and valuable mechanisms in order to extract all kinds of degenerative bugs, security holes, and possible deviations at the initial stage. Having understood the real need here, we have introduced a novel methodology for the estimation of defect proneness of class structures in object oriented (OO) software systems at design stage. Objective The objective of this work is to develop an estimation model that provides significant assessment of defect proneness of object oriented software packages at design phase of SDLC. This frame work enhances the efficiency of SDLC through design quality improvement. Method This involves a data driven methodology which is based on the empirical study of the relationship existing between design parameters and defect proneness. In the first phase, a mapping of the relationship between the design metrics and normal occurrence pattern of defects are carried out. This is represented as a set of non linear multifunctional regression equations which reflects the influence of individual design metrics on defect proneness. The defect proneness estimation model is then generated by weighted linear combination of these multifunctional regression equations. The weighted coefficients are evaluated through GQM (Goal Question Metric) paradigm. Results The model evaluation and validation is carried out with a selected set of cases which is found to be promising. The current study is successfully dealt with three projects and it opens up the opportunity to extend this to a wide range of projects across industries. Conclusion The defect proneness estimation at design stage facilitates an effective feedback to the design architect and enabling him to identify and reduce the number of defects in the modules appropriately. This results in a considerable improvement in software design leading to cost effective products.

Benchmarking library and application software with Data Envelopment Analysis

Library software is generally believed to be well-structured and follows certain design guidelines due to the need of continuous evolution and stability of the respective APIs. We perform an empirical study to investigate whether the design of open-source library software is actually superior to that of application software. By analyzing certain design principles and heuristics that are considered important for API design, we extract a set of software metrics that are expected to reflect the improved nature of libraries. An initial comparison by conventional statistical analysis confirms the overall belief that products of different software size scale should not be compared by simply examining metric values in isolation. In this paper, we propose the use of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), borrowed from production economics, as a means of measuring and benchmarking the quality of different object-oriented software designs captured by software metrics and apply this approach to the comparison of library and application software. The advantages offered by DEA and the differences between the application of DEA in an economic and a technological context are discussed. Results of the approach are presented for 44 open-source projects, equally divided between libraries and applications.

Firms’ involvement in Open Source projects: A trade-off between software structural quality and popularity

Open Source (OS) was born as a pragmatic alternative to the ideology of Free Software and it is now increasingly seen by companies as a new approach to developing and making business upon software. Whereas the role of firms is clear for commercial OS projects, it still needs investigation for projects based on communities. This paper analyses the impact of firms’ participation on popularity and internal software design quality for 643 SourceForge.net projects. Results show that firms’ involvement improves the ranking of OS projects, but, on the other hand, puts corporate constraints to OS developing practices, thus leading to lower structural software design quality.

온톨로지 기반의 소프트웨어 설계에러검출방법

Abstract The objective of this thesis is to improve the quality of a software product based on the enhancement of a software design quality using a better error detecting method. Also, this thesis is based on a software design method called as MOA(Methodology for Object to Agents) which uses an ontology based ODES(A Method based on Ontology for Detecting Errors in the Software Design) model as a common information model. At this thesis, a new format of error detecting method was defined. The method is implemented during a transformation process from UML model to ODES model using a ODES model, a Inter-View Inconsistency Detection technique and a combination of ontologic property of consistency framework and related rules. Transformation process to ODES model includes lexicon analysis and meaning analysis of a software design using of multiple mapping table at algorithm for the generation of ODES model instance. Key Words : Consistency, Softwre design, Error detection 본 연구는 한국과학재단 특정기초연구 (R01-2006-000- 10555-0)지원으로 수행되었음.

Development of an electronic control unit for a compressed natural gas engine, based on circuit simulation and modelling

An electronic control unit (ECU) is designed for a compressed natural gas (CNG) engine on the basis of circuit simulation and modelling. The ignition drive circuit and power-off delay circuit are discussed, with emphasis on circuit simulation, and resistance matching for the sensor processing circuit is described. Design of the software of the CNG control system is based on modelling. A TargetLink model of an air—fuel ratio closed-loop control system is presented. The CNG ECU has been applied successfully in bench tests. The results of bench tests have shown that the hardware meets CNG control system requirements; actuators can be controlled precisely, and the performance of the CNG engine can reach design targets. Circuit simulation and modelling are good methods for developing the ECU design for CNG engine systems. Quality of hardware and software design can be ensured, and the development cycle and costs can be reduced.

Metrics to study symptoms of bad software designs

Design of a software product largely influences its quality. Good design is one of the pre-requisites of a high quality product. Me-trics are usually used to assess the quality of software designs. The metrics for object oriented design focus on design characteristics, such as abstraction, coupling, cohesion, inheritance, polymorphism and encapsulation and are applied at attribute, method, class, pack-age, file and systems levels. Design metrics help the software de-signers to understand the problem areas in a design and to develop prediction models. A number of studies have modeled relation-ships between object oriented metrics and reusability, defects and faults, maintainability, and effort, and cost savings. So design me-trics can give an early indication of goodness of design and thus of the software product developed using that design. If designers know symptoms of bad design then it is helpful for them to avoid the bad design. In this paper, we have explored some of the symp-toms of bad design and studied metric relationships which high-light these symptoms.

Software similarity-based functional cohesion metric

Cohesion is an important factor used in evaluating software design quality and modularity. The cohesion of a module refers to the relatedness of the module components. In software engineering, highly cohesive modules are highly desirable because of their high reusability and maintainability. Cohesion is classified according to levels. Functional cohesion, the strongest level, refers to how closely the module parts that contribute to different outputs are related. Here, a similarity-based functional cohesion (SBFC) metric is introduced to measure the functional cohesion of a module in a procedural or object-oriented program. The metric uses the degree of similarity between the data slices of the module as a basis to measure functional cohesion. The appropriateness of the metric is evaluated both theoretically and empirically. The evaluation results show that the metric does as well as some earlier metrics in indicating the level of cohesiveness and it does better than some in terms of providing different values for the modules of different cohesion. In addition, the SBFC metric is used as an indicator for restructuring the weakly cohesive modules.

An Empirical Study on the Relationship Between Software Design Quality, Development Effort and Governance in Open Source Projects

The relationship among software design quality, development effort, and governance practices is a traditional research problem. However, the extent to which consolidated results on this relationship remain valid for open source (OS) projects is an open research problem. An emerging body of literature contrasts the view of open source as an alternative to proprietary software and explains that there exists a continuum between closed and open source projects. This paper hypothesizes that as projects approach the OS end of the continuum, governance becomes less formal. In turn a less formal governance is hypothesized to require a higher-quality code as a means to facilitate coordination among developers by making the structure of code explicit and facilitate quality by removing the pressure of deadlines from contributors. However, a less formal governance is also hypothesized to increase development effort due to a more cumbersome coordination overhead. The verification of research hypotheses is based on empirical data from a sample of 75 major OS projects. Empirical evidence supports our hypotheses and suggests that software quality, mainly measured as coupling and inheritance, does not increase development effort, but represents an important managerial variable to implement the more open governance approach that characterizes OS projects which, in turn, increases development effort.

Does Test-Driven Development Really Improve Software Design Quality?

Support for test-driven development [TDD] is growing in many development contexts beyond its common association with extreme programming. By focusing on how TDD influences design characteristics, we hope to raise awareness of TDD as a design approach and assist others in decisions on whether and how to adopt TDD. Our results indicate that test-first programmers are more likely to write software in more and smaller units that are less complex and more highly tested. We weren't able to confirm claims that TDD improves cohesion while lowering coupling, but we anticipate ways to clarify the questions these design characteristics raised. In particular, we're working to eliminate the confounding factor of accessor usage in the cohesion metrics.

Impact of aspect-oriented programming on software development efficiency and design quality: an empirical study

The aspect-oriented programming (AOP) approach is supposed to enhance a system's features such as modularity, readability and simplicity. Owing to a better modularisation of crosscutting concerns, the developed system implementation would be less complex, and more readable. Thus, software development efficiency would increase, so the system would be created faster than its object-oriented programming (OOP) equivalent. An empirical study of a web-based system development is carried out to examine AOP against OOP approach with regard to software development efficiency and design quality. The study reveals that the AOP approach appears to be a fullfledged alternative to the pure OOP approach. Nevertheless, the impact of AOP on software development efficiency and design quality was not confirmed. In particular, it appeared that design quality metrics were not significantly associated with using AOP, instead of OOP. It is possible that the benefits of AOP will exceed the results obtained in the present study for experiments with larger number of subjects.

The measurement of software design quality

Software quality involves the conformance of a software product to some predefined set of functional requirements at a specified level of quality. The software is considered valid when it conforms ...

The measurement of software design quality

Software quality involves the conformance of a software product to some predefined set of functional requirements at a specified level of quality. The software is considered valid when it conforms to these “quality factors” at some acceptable level. There are a large number of quality factors against which software may be validated. This paper discusses the development of traditional software metrics in relation to the anticipated structure of a software system. The taxonomy of a software system primarily relies upon the dissection of the software system into modules. Modular design is the cornerstone of quality software, and metrics that can predict an optimum modular structure are critical. By examining the theoretical bases on quality metrics, a base set of common quantitative metrics can be devised and mapped to quality metrics in which they reside. This paper surveys existing metrics and suggests the derivation of software design metrics from software quality factors. Measurable software attributes are identified and suggested as potential design metrics.

Designing software for producibility

This article addresses the questions, what is software design quality and how can measurement help to improve it? There are two principal quality factors: traceability and producibility. The former is the usual notion of software quality as conformance to require0ments. The latter relates to the difficulty of implementing the proposed design. Poor producibility means increased probability of error, lower productivity, and higher maintenance costs during the rest of the product's life cycle. Measurement can help to improve design quality in several ways. It establishes a basis for evaluating design practices and guiding design process improvements. Specifically, measuring complexity provides criteria for making decisions about design alternatives that maximize producibility. This concept of quality and the applications for measurement to software design are illustrated with data from actual projects.