Software Measurement Methods: An Analysis of Two Designs

Jean-Marc Desharnais, Alain Abran

Department of Software Engineering and IT, école de Technologie Supérieure, Montreal, Canada.

DOI: 10.4236/jsea.2012.510092                

Abstract

In software engineering, software measures are often proposed without precise identification of the measurable concepts they attempt to quantify: consequently, the numbers obtained are challenging to reproduce in different measurement contexts and to interpret, either as base measures or in combination as derived measures. The lack of consistency when using base measures in data collection can affect both data preparation and data analysis. This paper analyzes the similarities and differences across three different views of measurement methods (ISO International Vocabulary on Metrology, ISO 15939, and ISO 25021), and uses a process proposed for the design of software measurement methods to analyze two examples of such methods selected from the literature.

Keywords

Software Measures; Base Measures; Derived Measures; Measurement Method; Attributes; Software Quality Model; Metrology; Software Metrics

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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