Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

The design metrics developed by the Design Metrics team at Ball State University are a suite of metrics that can be applied during the design phase of software development. The benefit of the metrics lies in the fact that the metrics can be applied early in the software development cycle. The suite includes the external design metric De,the internal design metric D27 D(G), the design balance metric DB, and the design connectivity metric DC.The suite of design metrics have been applied to large-scale industrial software as well as student projects. Bell Communications Research of New Jersey has made available a software system that can be used to apply design metrics to large-scale telecommunications software. This thesis presents the suite of design metrics and attempts to determine if the characteristics of telecommunications software are accurately reflected in the conventions used to compute the metrics. / Department of Computer Science

At Ball State University Dr. Wayne Zage and Professor Dolores Zage are working on a Design metrics project to develop a metrics approach for analyzing software design.The purpose of this thesis is to test the hypotheses of this metric by calculating the De external design component, and to show the correlation of errors and stress points in the design phase for a large Ada Software, professionally developed at Computer Sciences Corporation.From these studies we can relatively conclude that De does indicate the error-prone module. Since the D(G) is comprised of an internal and external component it is necessary to evaluate Di to support this hypothesis on a large project. Just by viewing the external complexity, the metric does a relatively good job of pointing out high error modules, with only viewing 10% of the modules we found 33% of the errors.Comparing the results of STANFINS-R and the results of the BSU projects, the BSU projects did better in finding the errors 33% verus 53%. However in the STANFINS project, we had a better success rate of finding the error modules. Of the modules highlighted 72% did contain errors. Thus if we loosened the criteria for selection of error prone modules we might have had a large percentage of the errors captured. / Department of Computer Science

The inability to accurately estimate costs which are associated with software development is an increasing concern of the scientists and practitioners involved. Many factors influence the cost and many models have been offered to estimate the expenses for developing a software system of any size and type. Unfortunately, the problem remains the same. There is a significant need for further research in order to develop complete understanding in this area.This thesis examines the cost influential factors and reviews a number of existing cost estimation models. Then, a hypothetical method is shown for estimating cost, incorporating the PERT sizing technique, the Basic and Intermediate COCOMO models, and a blend of features from the Putnam's Resource Allocation model and the SLIM model. The implementation of this method is also included. / Department of Computer Science

It is well known that the cost of large-scale software systems has become unacceptably high. Software metrics by giving a quantitative view of software and its development would prove invaluable to both software designers and project managers. Although several software quality metrics have been developed to assess the psychological complexity of programming tasks, many of these metrics were not validated on any software system of significant size. This thesis reports on an effort to validate seven different software quality metrics on a medium size data base system. Three different versions of the data base system that evolved over a period of three years were analyzed in this study. A redesign of the data base system, while still in its design phase was also analyzed. The results indicate the power of software metrics in identifying the high complexity modules in the system and also improper integration of enhancements made to an existing system. The complexity values of the system components as indicated by the metrics, conform well to an intuitive understanding of the system by people familiar with the system. An analysis of the redesigned version of the data base system showed the usefulness of software metrics in the design phase by revealing a poorly structured component of the system. / Master of Science

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

A data structure editor is presented for use in an integrated, fragment-based programming environment. This editor employs high resolution computer graphics to present the user with an iconic representation of the internal storage of a running program. / The editor allows the creation, modification, and deletion of data structures. These abilities allow the user to quickly sketch data structures with which to test incomplete program fragments, alleviating the need for driver routines. / To keep the user cognizant of events inside his program, a technique for automated display management is presented allowing the user to keep the most important objects in the viewport at all times. A history facility permits the user to see the former values of all variables. / Execution controls are provided allowing the user to control the scope and speed of execution, manipulate frames on the run-time stack, set breakpoints, and profile the executing algorithm.

Tarek K. Abdel-Hamid, Stuart E. Madnick. / "August 1988." "This paper is a companion piece to CISR WP No. 163, Modeling the dynamics of software project management." / Includes bibliographical references (p. 18-21).