Metrics

Original prepared by: Sudipto Ghosh Revised: Aditya Mathur

Latest update: October 28, 3003

Learning objectives
Software metrics
Metrics for various phases

Why are metrics needed

How to collect metrics How to use metrics
10/19/2003 Metrics 2

Questions
How big is the program?
Huge!!

How close are you to finishing?

We are almost there!!

Can you, as a manager, make any useful decisions from such subjective information? Need information like, cost, effort, size of project.
10/19/2003 Metrics 3

Metrics
Quantifiable measures that could be used to measure characteristics of a software system or the software development process Required in all phases Required for effective management Managers need quantifiable information, and not subjective information
Subjective information goes against the fundamental goal of engineering.
10/19/2003 Metrics 4

Kinds of software metrics

Product metrics
quantify characteristics of the product being developed
size, reliability

Process metrics
quantify characteristics of the process being used to develop the software
efficiency of fault detection

10/19/2003

Metrics

CMM
Level 4: Managed level
Process measurement performed Quality and productivity goals set Continually measured and corrective actions taken Statistical quality controls in place

Level 5: Optimizing level

Statistical quality and process control in place Positive feedback loop used for improvement in productivity and quality
10/19/2003 Metrics 6

Issues [1]
Cost of collecting metrics
Automation is less costly than manual method CASE tool may not be free
Development cost of the tool Extra execution time for collecting metrics

Interpretation of metrics consumes resources

Validity of metrics
Does the metric really measure what it should? What exactly should be measured?
10/19/2003 Metrics 7

Issues [2]
Selection of metrics for measurement
Hundreds available and with some cost

Basic metrics
Size (like LOC) Cost (in $$$) Duration (months) Effort (person-months) Quality (number of faults detected)
Metrics 8

10/19/2003

Selection of metrics
Identify problems from the basic metrics
high fault rates during coding phase

Introduce strategy to correct the problems To monitor success, collect more detailed metrics
fault rates of individual programmers

10/19/2003

Metrics

Utility of metrics
LOC
size of product take at regular intervals and find out how fast the project is growing

What if # defects per 1000 LOC is high?

Then even if the LOC is high, most of the code has to be thrown away.

10/19/2003

Metrics

10

Applicability of metrics
Throughout the software process, like
effort in person-months staff turnover cost

Specific to a phase
LOC # defects detected per hour of reviewing specifications

10/19/2003

Metrics

11

Metrics: planning
When can we plan the entire software project?
At the very beginning? After a rapid prototype is made? After the requirements phase? After the specifications are ready?

Sometimes there is a need to do it early.

10/19/2003

Metrics

12

Metrics: planning
graph of cost estimate
4

Requirements Specifications Design Implementation Integration

Phase during which cost estimation is made

10/19/2003 Metrics 13

Planning: Cost estimation

Client wants to know:
How much will I have to pay?

Problem with
underestimation (possible loss by the developer) overestimation (client may offer bid to someone else)

Cost
internal (salaries of personnel, overheads) external (usually cost + profit)
10/19/2003 Metrics 14

Cost estimation
Other factors:
desperate for work - charge less client may think low cost => low quality, so raise the amount

Too many variables

Human factors
Quality of programmers, experience What if someone leaves midway

Size of product
10/19/2003 Metrics 15

Planning: Duration estimation

Problem with underestimation
unable to keep to schedule, leading to
loss of credibility possible penalty clauses

Problem with overestimation

the client may go to other developers

Difficulty because of similar reasons as for cost estimation

10/19/2003 Metrics 16

Metrics: planning - size of product

Units for measurement
LOC = lines of code KDSI = thousand delivered source instructions

Problems
creation of code is only a part of the total effort effect of using different languages on LOC how should one count LOC?
executable lines of code? data definitions comments? What are the pros and cons?
10/19/2003 Metrics 17

Problems with lines of code

Problems
More on how to count
Job control language statements? What if lines are changed or deleted? What if code is reused?

Not all code is delivered to clients

code may be for tool support

What if you are using a code generator? Early on, you can only estimate the lines of code. So, the cost estimation is based on another estimated quantity!!!
10/19/2003 Metrics 18

Estimating size of product

FFP metric for cost estimation of medium-scale products Files, flows and processes (FFP)
File: collection of logically or physically related records that are permanently resident Flow: a data interface between the product and the environment Process: functionally defined logical or arithmetic manipulation of data

S = #Files + #Flows + #Process, Cost = b x S b: Organization dependent constant.

10/19/2003 Metrics 19

Techniques of cost estimation

Take into account the following:
Skill levels of the programmers Complexity of the project

Size of the project

Familiarity of the development team Availability of CASE tools Deadline effect
10/19/2003 Metrics 20

Techniques of cost estimation

Expert judgement by analogy Bottom up approach Algorithmic cost estimation models
Based on mathematical theories
resource consumption during s/w development obeys a specific distribution

Based on statistics
large number of projects are studied

Hybrid models
mathematical models, statistics and expert judgement
10/19/2003 Metrics 21

COnstructive COst Model: COCOMO

Series of three models
Basic - macroestimation model Intermediate COCOMO Detailed - microestimation model

Estimates total effort in terms of person-months Cost of development, management, support tasks included Secretarial staff not included
10/19/2003 Metrics 22

Intermediate COCOMO
Obtain an initial estimate (nominal estimate) of the development effort from the estimate of KDSI Nominal effort = a X (KDSI)b person-months
System Organic Semi-detached Embedded a 3.2 3.0 2.8 b 1.05 1.12 1.20

10/19/2003

Metrics

23

Kind of systems
Organic
Organization has considerable experience in that area Requirements are less stringent Small teams Simple business systems, data processing systems

Semi-detached
New operating system Database management system Complex inventory management system
Metrics

10/19/2003

24

Kind of systems
Embedded
Ambitious, novel projects Organization has little experience Stringent requirements for interfacing, reliability Tight constraints from the environment Embedded avionics systems, real-time command systems

10/19/2003

Metrics

25

Intermediate COCOMO (contd.)

Determine a set of 15 multiplying factors from different attributes (cost driver attributes) of the project
http://sunset.usc.edu/research/COCOMOII/

Adjust the effort estimate by multiplying the initial estimate with all the multiplying factors

Also have phase-wise distribution

10/19/2003 Metrics 26

Determining the rating

Module complexity multiplier
Very low: control operations consist of a sequence of constructs of structured programming Low: Nested operators Nominal: Inter-module control and decision tables High: Highly nested operators, compound predicates, stacks and queues Very high: Reentrant and recursive coding, fixed priority handling
10/19/2003 Metrics 27

COCOMO example
System for office automation Four major modules
data entry: data update: query: report generator: Total: 0.6 KDSI 0.6 KDSI 0.8 KDSI 1.0 KDSI 3.0 KDSI

Category: organic Initial effort: 3.2 * 31.05 = 10.14 PM

(PM = person-months)
10/19/2003 Metrics 28

COCOMO example (contd)

From the requirements the ratings were assessed:
Complexity High Storage High Experience Low Programmer Capability Low Other ratings are nominal (=1.0) 1.15 1.06 1.13 1.17

EAF = 1.15 * 1.06 * 1.13 * 1.17 = 1.61 Adjusted effort = 1.61 * 10.14 = 16.3 PM
10/19/2003 Metrics 29

Metrics: requirements phase

Number of requirements that change during the rremainder of the software development process
if a large number changed during specification, design, , something is wrong in the requirements phase

Metrics for rapid prototyping

Are defect rates, mean-time-to-failure useful? Knowing how often requirements change? Knowing number of times features are tried?

10/19/2003

Metrics

30

Metrics: specification phase

Size of specifications document
may predict effort required for subsequent products What can be counted?
Number of items in the data dictionary
number of files number of data items number of processes

Tentative information
a process in a DFD may be broken down later into different modules a number of processes may constitute one module
10/19/2003 Metrics 31

Metrics: specification phase

Cost

Duration
Effort Quality
number of faults found during inspection rate at which faults are found (efficiency of inspection)
10/19/2003 Metrics 32

Metrics: design phase

Number of modules (measure of size of target product) Fault statistics Module cohesion Module coupling Cyclomatic complexity Fan-in, fan-out
10/19/2003 Metrics 33

Mccabes Cyclomatic Complexity

Number of independent test paths=edges-nodes+2

1-2+2=1 Straight line code

10/19/2003

4-4+2=2

3-3+2=2
if-then-else
Metrics

while-do
34

McCabee Cyclomatic complexity

Number of binary decisions + 1 The number of branches in a module Lower the value of this number, the better

Only control complexity, no data complexity

For OO, cyclomatic complexity is usually low because methods are mostly small
also, data component is important for OO, but ignored in cyclomatic complexity
10/19/2003 Metrics 35

Architecture design as a directed graph

Fan-in of a module: Fan-out of a module:
number of flows out of the module plus the number of data structures updated by the module

Measure of complexity:
length X (fan-in X fan-out)2

10/19/2003

Metrics

36

Metrics: implementation phase

Intuition: more complex modules are more likely to contain faults Redesigning complex modules may be cheaper than debugging complex faulty modules Measures of complexity: LOC
assume constant probability of fault per LOC empirical evidence: number of faults related to the size of the product
10/19/2003 Metrics 37

Metrics: implementation phase

McCabes cyclomatic complexity
Essentially the number of branches in a module Number of tests needed for branch coverage of a module Easily computed In some cases, good for predicting faults Validity questioned
Theoretical grounds Experimentally

10/19/2003

Metrics

38

Metrics: implementation phase

Halsteads software metrics
Number of distinct operators in the module (+. -. If, goto) Number of distinct operands Total number of operators Total number of operands

10/19/2003

Metrics

39

Metrics: implementation phase

High correlation shown between LOC and other complexity metrics
Complexity metrics provide little improvement over LOC Problem with Halstead metrics for modern languages
Constructor: is it an operator? Operand?

10/19/2003

Metrics

40

Metrics: implementation and integration phase Total number of test cases Number of tests resulting in failure Fault statistics
Total number of faults Types of faults
misunderstanding the design lack of initialization inconsistent use of variables

Statistical testing:
zero-failure technique
10/19/2003 Metrics 41

Zero failure technique

The longer a product is tested without a single failure being observed, the greater the likelihood that the product is free of faults.

Assume that the chance of a failure decreases exponentially as testing proceeds. Figure out the number of test hours required without a single failure occurring.
10/19/2003 Metrics 42

Metrics: inspections
Purpose: to measure the effectiveness of inspections
may reflect deficiencies of the development team, quality of code

Measure fault density

Faults per page - specs and design inspection Faults per KLOC - code inspection Fault detection rate - #faults / hour Fault detection efficiency - #faults/person-hour
Metrics 43

10/19/2003

Metrics: maintenance phase

Metrics related to the activities performed. What are they? Specific metrics:
total number of faults reported classifications by severity, fault type status of fault reports (reported/fixed)

10/19/2003

Metrics

44

References
Textbook
Roger Pressman: Chapters 4, 19

Other books
P. Jalote - An Integrated Approach to Software
Engineering (Look at metrics under Index)

Internet reference
www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~bernhard/314/schachSlides/ schach5-chap0914%5B1%5D.ppt

10/19/2003

Metrics

45