This paper presents an examination into the economics of software quality assurance. An analysis of the software life-cycle is performed to determine where in the cycle the application of quality assurance techniques would be most beneficial. The number and types of errors occurring at various phases of the software life-cycle are estimated. A variety of approaches in increasing software quality (including Structured Programming, Top Down Design, Programmer Management Techniques and Automated Tools) are reviewed and their potential impact on quality and costs are examined.

The economics of software quality assurance

When a single software module in a large system is modified, a potentially large number of other modules may have to be recompiled. By reducing both the number of compilations and the amount of input processed by each compilation run, the turnaround time after changes can be reduced significantly.Potential time savings are measured in a medium-sized, industrial software project over a three-year period. The results indicate that a large number of compilations caused by traditional compilation unit dependencies may be redundant. On the available data, a mechanism that compares compiler output saves about 25 percent, smart recompilation saves 50 percent, and smartest recompilation may save up to 80 percent of compilation work.Furthermore, all compilation methods other than smartest recompilation process large amounts of unused environment data. In the project analyzed, the average environment symbols are actually used. Reading only the actually used symbols would reduce total compiler input by about 50 percent.Combining smart recompilation with a reduction in environment processing might double to triple perceived compilation speed and double linker speed, without sacrificing static type safety.

/pdf/the-cost-of-selective-recompilation-and-environment-1emu5ldda4.pdf

The cost of selective recompilation and environment processing

Languages that support abstraction and modular structure, such as Standard ML, Modula, Ada, and (more or less) C++, may have deeply nested dependency hierarchies among source files. In ML the problem is particularly severe because ML's powerful parameterized module (functor) facility entails dependencies among implementation modules, not just among interfaces.To efficiently compile individual modules in such languages, it is useful (in ML, necessary) to infer, digest, and cache the static environment resulting from the compilation of each module.Our system provides a simple model of compilation and linkage that supports incremental recompilation (a restricted form of separate compilation) with type-safe linkage. This model is made available to user programs in the form of a set of internal compiler modules, a feature that we call the “visible compiler”. The chief client of this interface is the IRM incremental recompilation manager from CMU.

Separate compilation for Standard ML

This book captures the main scientific contributions of Victor R. Basili, who has significantly shaped the field of empirical software engineering from its very start. He was the first to claim that software engineering needed to follow the model of other physical sciences and develop an experimental paradigm. By working on this postulate, he developed concepts that today are well known and widely used, including the Goal-Question-Metric method, the Quality-Improvement paradigm, and the Experience Factory. He is one of the few software pioneers who can aver that their research results are not just scientifically acclaimed but are also used as industry standards. On the occasion of his 65th birthday, celebrated with a symposium in his honor at the International Conference on Software Engineering in St. Louis, MO, USA in May 2005, Barry Boehm, Hans Dieter Rombach, and Marvin V. Zelkowitz, each a long-time collaborator of Victor R. Basili, selected the 20 most important research papers of their friend, and arranged these according to subject field. They then invited renowned researchers to write topical introductions. The result is this commented collection of timeless cornerstones of software engineering, hitherto available only in scattered publications.

/pdf/foundations-of-empirical-software-engineering-the-legacy-of-3wrz9a6kef.pdf

Foundations of Empirical Software Engineering: The Legacy of Victor R. Basili

Modularity is invaluable, but changes in one module can have a domino effect on others, requiring significant extra compilation. BNR Pascal reduces this extra compilation.

Effect of Modularity on System Evolution

This paper describes the Bug Farm, a generator of test cases for compilers, and the Bug Contest, an administrative technique for speeding the process of testing system software. The techniques achieve a high rate of bug detection while minimizing user revulsion at undebugged software. © 1973 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Two unusual methods for debugging system software

The MARY12 language implemented at Penobscot Research Center contains language differences from previous MARY implementations. These differences significantly increase the difficulty of implementing a compiler. Similar constructs have appeared in recent language proposals such as those for ADA. The methods of the MARY/2 compiler should be useful in compilers for these and other future languages. This paper discusses the language constructs which are the source of the difficulty; the implementation methods actually used; possible trade used; and the character of the programs which these constructs facilitate.

The structure of the MARY/2 compiler

Programming languages which support separate but not independent compilation are prone to a problem called trickle-down recompilation. These languages, which include Ada, Modula and others as well as Mary2,1 permit a compilation unit to refer at compile time to objects declared in another, imported, compilation unit. When the exporting compilation unit is recompiled for any reason, its exported interface may change, and so the importing compilation units which are the clients of that interface must be recompiled. These recompilations in turn force others, and so on

Many recompilations are in fact innocuous, in that they may change the run-time behaviour of the recompiled unit but do not alter the exported interface. This paper describes the implementation of that portion of the Mary2 language system which performs just those recompilations actually necessary and avoids redundant recompilations. The methods described are applicable to the implementation of any other language which enforces version control across compilations.

Avoiding trickle-down recompilation in the Mary2 implementation

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Two unusual methods for debugging system software

The structure of the MARY/2 compiler

Avoiding trickle-down recompilation in the Mary2 implementation