Combining Knowledge and Metrics to Control Software Quality Factors
Jordi Álvarez, Núria Castell, Olga Slavkova · 1996
The LESD project (Linguistic Engineering for Software Development) aimed to develop computing tools for analysis and reasoning on functional or preliminary specifications of aerospace software written in English. These tools help to control the quality of software written during the first stage: specification. The factors considered relevant to the quality of specifications in the LESD project are: traceability, modifiability, completeness, consistency, and verifiability. This paper deals with completeness and modifiability. In the case of completeness we present a symbolic approach to control this factor, using a Knowledge Base. Checks are based on metarequirements that try to ensure structural completeness. The concept of modifiability is based on the level of interconnection between the requirements of the specifications. Two metrics have been defined in order to measure global and local levels of interconnection.