This book contains the eight invited papers presented at the workshop on Formal Aspects of Measurement held at South Bank University on 5th May 1991, organised by the British Computer Society's Special Interest Group on Formal Aspects of Computer Science (FACS). In addition, there are five papers which have been included because of their relevance to the subject of the workshop. The book represents something of a landmark in software engineering research. The British Computer Society's Special Interest Group on Formal Aspects of Computer Science (FACS) has an established reputa tion among researchers in formal methods of software specification, design and validation. These researchers have not in the past paid much attention to software measurement. Perhaps software measurement re search was felt to have emphasised its management potential at the expense of proper scientific foundations? At any rate, for the FACS group to host a workshop in this field is recognition of the significant body of formal measurement theories and techniques which has now become available to software engineers.

Klappentext

This volume is based on the proceedings of the BCS-FACS Workshop on Formal Aspects of Measurement, held at South Bank University in May 1991. Research into software measurement is becoming increasingly important as the range of theories and techniques available to software engineers expands. This workshop was distinguished by the fact that it brought together many of the leading researchers in this area, both from Europe and the USA. The resulting volume contains the 8 papers presented at the meeting, along with 5 additional papers which offer further insight into the topics raised there. It also contains a significant contribution from the NATO-funded "Grubstake Group", which was set up in 1988 to promote formalism in software measurement. The volume has been designed to reflect 4 different formal aspects of measurement: section 1 discusses principles of measurement; section 2 looks at how these principles are reflected in the design and implementation of actual measurements; section 3 deals with measurement validation and verification; and section 4 discusses the mathematical and logical foundations, which are an underlying theme in all the preceding sections. Among the actual topics covered are: Software measurement - Why a formal approach?; Complexity measures on trees; Multi-dimensional software metrics; Algebraic models and metric validation; Properties of software measures; Specifying internal, external and predictive software metrics: and Measurement theory and software metrics. BFormal/B BAspects of Measurement/B provides a snapshot of recent research in this increasingly important field. It will be invaluable to postgraduate students, and researchers in formal and mathematical methods.

Inhalt

1. Principles of Measurement.- Software Measurement: Why a Formal Approach? (Invited Paper).- Never Mind the Metrics What About the Numbers! (Invited Paper).- Moving from Philosophy to Practice in Software Measurement.- 2. Formal Measurement in Practice.- Deriving Measures of Software Reuse in Object Oriented Systems (Invited Paper).- Language Independent Definition of Axiomatic Metrics.- Complexity Measures on Trees.- Multi-dimensional Software Metrics.- 3. Measurement Validation/Verification.- A Critique of Validation/Verification Techniques for Software Development Measures.- Algebraic Models and Metric Validation (Invited Paper).- 4. Foundations.- Properties of Software Measures (Invited Paper).- Specifying Internal, External, and Predictive Software Metrics (Invited Paper).- The Mathematics of Measurement in Software Engineering.- Measurement Theory and Software Measures (Invited Paper).- Author Index.