SOFTWARE-PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCE, VOL. 26(8), 983-984 (AUGUST 1996)

Book Review SOFTWARE QUALITY ASSURANCE AND MEASURE- MENT. A WORLDWIDE PERSPECTIVE, Edited by Norman Fenton, Robin Whitty and Yoshinori Lizuka, International Thomson Computer Press, 1995. Price: f35. No. of pages: 315. ISBN 1-85032-174-4 (hardback).

The subject of this book is the problem of measuring and assuring quality in the software industry. It is an edited collection of papers from the 10th annual workshop of the Centre for Software Reliability (CSR, based in the U.K.), held at Amsterdam in 1993. This was a landmark event for the CSR, representing a decade of effort in spreading their message of measurement from academia to industry. The book claims to be the first to present a comprehensive international over- view of software quality assurance and metrics practice. Reflecting the contributions to the work- shop, the book concentrates on Western countries and Japan, although it could have been enhanced by including quality practices of other major play- ers emerging in the international software industry, such as South Asia and Eastern Europe.

The introductory chapter summarizes the state of the art in software quality practice, and explains concepts that recur in the book such as TQM (total quality management), CMM (capability maturity model) and GQM (goal question metric), and rel- evant standards such as IS0 9000-3 and IS0 9126. It highlights the two key themes of the book: role of measurement in quality assurance (QA) and the cultural differences between Japan and the West in this context. It also warns of the abuse of metrics in software, due to basic measurement flaws such as poorly defined dependent/ independent variables, which dramatically affect the conclusions made from measurement. The dan- gers of using well-known paradigms of measure- ment outside the contexts in which they were originally intended to be used are pointed out.

The rest of the book is divided into three parts: (i) measurement frameworks, (ii) software QA methods and tools and (iii) case studies. The papers here are written by well-known authors in their particular fields. They have been edited to contain adequate cross references and overviews to link

the chapters together. The contents of the book are as follows: Introduction Norman Fenton and Robin Whitty; Part One Measurement Frarne- works Applying the GoallQuestiodMetric para- digm in the experience factory Victor R. Basili, Setting up a metrics programme in industry Shari Lawrence Pfeeger, Introducing metrics into indus- try: a perspective on GQM Richard Bache and Martin Neil, Software measurement - an evol- utionary approach Norbert Fuchs, The Quantum Study Chris Miller, Use of function points for estimation and contracts Jolijn Onvlee; Part Two Software QA Methods and Tools The sorry state of software practice measurement and evaluation Bill Hetzel, A new paradigm for software quality: the turning point for the Japanese software industry Yoshinori Lizuka, Behaviour analysis makes the company mature Ryuzo Kaneko, Yasuhiro Kadota and Shogo Ohba, A framework for quality systems development Minoru Itakura, The role of quality staff in software development Masanobu Hattori, The practical implementation of process improve- ment initiatives Paul Goodman, Integrating software quality assurance into the teaching of programming Steve Benford, Edmund Burke and Eric Foxley, Complexity traces: an instrument for software project management Christof Ebert, AIME: an integrated measurement environment C. Tsalidis, A. Hatzimanikatis, D. Christodoulakis and G Kliafas; Part Three Case Studies Software management by metrics: practical experiences in Italy Gualtiero Bazzana, Paolo Caliman, Delia Gandini, Massimo Giunchi, Roberto Lancelloti and Pierfrancesco Marino, Product development and quality assurance in the software factory Katsuyuki Yasuda and Keiko Koga, Software reuse: a study Sadahiro Zsoda, Automated incremental improve- ment of software product quality: a case history Les Hatton, An empirical investigation of software fault distribution Karl-Heinrich Moller and Daniel J. Paulish, Measurement through the software Iifecycle: a comparative case study Robert Cole and Derek Woods, Using function points for software cost estimation: some empirical results Barara Kitchenham, Evaluating effort prediction systems Calude Stricker, Situational metrics J.

0 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

984 BOOK REVIEW

Schulenklopper, V. van Swede and J. C. van Vliet. Several papers mention the need for a theoretical basis for software quality metrics, although this collection does not have a paper devoted to the topic.

Overall, this book presents a good survey of the state of the art in software quality measurement and assurance, identifying the good and the bad points of commonly used practices, frameworks

and metrics. It is also suitable as an introductory book for newcomers to the area, who understand software but have no previous knowledge of met- rics or quality assurance techniques.

DIVYA PRASAD Department of Computer Science

University of York U. K .