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Software Measurement: Why a Formal Approach?

  • Conference paper
Book cover Formal Aspects of Measurement

Part of the book series: Workshops in Computing ((WORKSHOPS COMP.))

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Abstract

As a discipline software measurement has suffered from a fragmented approach and a lack of a rigorous foundation. We show that the observation of some very simple, but fundamental.principles of measurement can have an extremely beneficial effect in the field of software measurement. Simply interpreting the formal definition of measurement in the software context leads to: (i) rationalizing and relating the various diverse software metrics activities, (ii) practical help in constructing and validating software measures, and (iii) the exposure of inconsistencies of some existing approaches in software measurement.

Any measurement involves an obligation to identify the entities of interest and the attributes of these to be measured. In software the entities may be classified as products, processes, and resources, while the attributes may be classified as internal or external to the entities. Next comes an obligation to determine whether measurement is being used for assessment or prediction.

We look at some well-known approaches to software measurement within this framework. exposing both the good points and bad points. We also describe the relevance of measurement theory to software measurement.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Software Reliability, City University, London, UK

    Norman Fenton

Authors
  1. Norman Fenton
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Translimina Ltd, 37 Orpington Road Winchmore Hill, N21 3PD, London, UK

    Tim Denvir MA, CEng, MIEE, MBCS

  2. Humanities Programme, Imperial College, 180 Queen’s Gate, SW7 2BZ, London, UK

    Rosalind Herman MA, MSc

  3. Centre for Systems and Software Engineering, South Bank University, 103 Borough Road, SE1 0AA, London, UK

    Robin W. Whitty BSc, PhD, C.Math, FIMA

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© 1992 British Computer Society

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Fenton, N. (1992). Software Measurement: Why a Formal Approach?. In: Denvir, T., Herman, R., Whitty, R.W. (eds) Formal Aspects of Measurement. Workshops in Computing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3205-9_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3205-9_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-19788-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-3205-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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