Empirical Methods and Studies in Software Engineering: Experiences from ESERNET

Reidar Conradi, Alf Inge Wang (auth.), Reidar Conradi, Alf Inge Wang (eds.)3540406727, 9783540406723

Nowadays, societies crucially depend on high-quality software for a large part of their functionalities and activities. Therefore, software professionals, researchers, managers, and practitioners alike have to competently decide what software technologies and products to choose for which purpose.

For various reasons, systematic empirical studies employing strictly scientific methods are hardly practiced in software engineering. Thus there is an unquestioned need for developing improved and better-qualified empirical methods, for their application in practice and for dissemination of the results.

This book describes different kinds of empirical studies and methods for performing such studies, e.g., for planning, performing, analyzing, and reporting such studies. Actual studies are presented in detail in various chapters dealing with inspections, testing, object-oriented techniques, and component-based software engineering.

Table of contents :
Front Matter….Pages –
Introduction….Pages 1-6
Empirical Research Methods in Software Engineering….Pages 7-23
Challenges and Recommendations When Increasing the Realism of Controlled Software Engineering Experiments….Pages 24-38
Empirical Studies in ESERNET….Pages 39-54
Software Engineering Knowledge Repositories….Pages 55-80
Using Empirical Studies during Software Courses….Pages 81-103
Practical Experiences in the Design and Conduct of Surveys in Empirical Software Engineering….Pages 104-128
Post Mortem – An Assessment of Two Approaches….Pages 129-141
Evaluating Checklist-Based and Use-Case-Driven Reading Techniques as Applied to Software Analysis and Design UML Artifacts….Pages 142-165
Effectiveness of Code Reading and Functional Testing with Event-Driven Object-Oriented Software….Pages 166-192
Experimentation with Usage-Based Reading….Pages 193-207
Functional Testing, Structural Testing and Code Reading: What Fault Type Do They Each Detect?….Pages 208-232
COTS Products Characterization: Proposal and Empirical Assessment….Pages 233-255
Reuse Based Software Factory….Pages 256-273
Appendix – Glossary….Pages 274-278
Back Matter….Pages –