Measurement in software engineering is an important activity for successful planning and management of projects under development. However knowing what to measure and how is crucial for the correct interpretation of the measurement results. In this paper, we assess the applicability of a number of software metrics for measuring a set of meta-model properties - size, length, complexity, coupling and cohesion. The goal is to identify which of these properties are mostly affected by the evolution of industrial meta-models and also which metrics should be used for their successful monitoring. In order to assess the applicability of the chosen set of metrics, we calculate them on a set of releases of the standardized meta-model used in the development of automotive software systems - the AUTOSAR meta-model - in a case study at Volvo Car Corporation. To identify the most applicable metrics, we used Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The results of these metrics shall be used by software designers in planning software development projects based on multiple AUTOSAR meta-model versions. We concluded that the evolution of the AUTOSAR meta-model is quite even with respect to all 5 properties and that the metrics based on fan-in complexity and package cohesion quantify the evolution most accurately.

/pdf/quantifying-long-term-evolution-of-industrial-meta-models-a-3k65h0ork3.pdf

Quantifying Long-Term Evolution of Industrial Meta-Models - A Case Study

Software metrics are becoming more acceptable measures for software quality assessment. However, there is no standard form to represent metric definitions, which would be useful for metrics exchange and customization. In this article, we propose the Software Product Metrics Definition Language (SPMDL). We develop an XML-based description language to define software metrics in a precise and reusable form. Metric definitions in SPMDL are based on meta-models extracted from either source code or design artifacts, such as the Dagstuhl Middle Meta-model, with support for various abstraction levels. The language defines several flexible computation mechanisms, such as extended Object Constraint Language queries and predefined graph operations on the meta-model. SPMDL provides an unambiguous description of the metric definition; it is also easy to use and is extensible.

SPMDL: Software Product Metrics Definition Language

The ability of UML to handle the modeling process of complex industrial software applications has increased its popularity to the extent of becoming the de-facto language in serving the design purpose. Although, its rich graphical notation naturally oriented towards the object-oriented concept, facilitates the understandability, it hardly successes to report all domainspecific aspects in a satisfactory way. OCL, as the standard language for expressing additional constraints on UML models, has great potential to help improve expressiveness. Unfortunately, it suffers from a weak formalism due to its poor semantic resulting in many obstacles towards the build of tools support and thus its application in the industry field. For this reason, many researches were established to formalize OCL expressions using a more rigorous approach. Our contribution join this work in a complementary way since it focuses specifically on OCL predefined properties which constitute an important part in the construction of OCL expressions. Using formal methods, we mainly succeed in expressing rigorously OCL predefined functions.

On Formalizing Predefined OCL Properties

Background: The ever-increasing amount of software in cars today combined with high market competition demands fast adoption of new software solutions in car development projects. One challenge in enabling such a fast adoption is to develop the architecture and models of the automotive software systems in a structured and controlled way.

Objective: The main objective of this thesis was to enable the fast utilization of new architectural features in automotive software models. This was achieved by developing methods and tools to analyze the evolution of the domain-specific meta-models that are used to define the language of software models and their features. In particular, we wanted to identify the underlying changes caused by meta-model evolution related to a specific set of architectural features and assess their impact on both the architectural models and modeling tools used by different roles (e.g., the Original Equipment Manufacturers, OEMs, and their suppliers) in the development process.

Method: We achieved our objective by conducting an action research project in close collaboration with the Volvo Car Group (Volvo Cars) and the consortium of the AUTOSAR standard, which aims to standardize the architecture of automotive software systems. This collaboration facilitates fast feedback from experts in the field on the problems, ideas and methods we developed in the course of this research, thereby enabling the validation of the research results and proposed methods in on-going development projects, i.e., their direct application in the industry.

Results: We identified the most suitable software measures for measuring the evolution of both the automotive software models and meta-models. The calculation and presentation of the measurement results were done with the support of two, newly-developed tools. We also developed a method for the automated identification of an optimal set of new architectural features that should be adopted in development projects to facilitate the decision-making process concerning the selection of which of these new features would be adopted.

Conclusion: We applied the developed methods and tools to the architectural models and meta-models used at Volvo Cars and concluded that they provide valuable input for the decision-making process concerning which new versions of the standardized meta-model should be used in different projects. We also concluded that these methods and tools can facilitate the assessment of the impact of adopting new architectural features on the different roles involved in the development process.

https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/214640/214640.pdf

Measuring the Evolution of Automotive Software Models and Meta-Models to Support Faster Adoption of New Architectural Features

Several software quality metrics have been proposed during the last decades to reduce risks and faultiness during software development. Despite these many efforts, most defined measurements fail to reach a satisfactory level of performance due to the ambiguities detected in the way their definitions are expressed and later on interpreted. The paper introduces a formal extension of a well-known library of measures named FLAME. While this library is expressed using the semi-formal language OCL (Object Constraint Language) upon the UML meta-model, our extension make use of formal methods to provide a more precise and accurate measurements by proposing a formal definitions of software metrics upon a formal expression of the UML metamodel. Unlike the original definition of the library, this extension supports formal proofs and guarantees a unique interpretation which allows the built of tools support.

Towards a Formal Library for Precise and Accurate Measurements

Given the significant interest in applying formal methods to object oriented paradigms, this paper presents a formal approach to define software design quality metrics upon a formal specification of the UML metamodel using the Z language. This multi-level formalization benefits greatly to design metrics as it allows a non ambiguous interpretation and a more rigorous definition, which, in turn, can assist the implementation of tools to measure the software design quality for industrial application. Our achievement gives precise meaning to software design metrics definitions in order to facilitate verification and validation. We, especially, applied our approach to one of the most well known set of metrics: the CK metrics. Keywords-formalization; UML metamodel; Z; CK metrics;

/pdf/formal-specification-of-software-design-metrics-3w7e7whmk5.pdf

Formal Specification of Software Design Metrics

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Formal Specification of Software Design Metrics