Abstract
A number of papers have appeared on the subject of software science; claiming the existence of laws relating the size of a program and the number of operands and operators used. The pre-eminent theory was developed by Halstead in 1972. The thesis work focuses on the examination of Halstead's theory; with an emphasis on his fundamental assumptions. In particular, the length estimator was analyzed to determine why it yields such a high variance; the theoretical foundations of software science have been extended to improve the applicability of the critical length estimator. This elaboration of the basic theory will result in guidelines for the creation of counting rules applicable to specific classes of programs, so that it is possible to determine both when and how software science can be applied in practice.
- 1 Christensen, K., Fitsos, G. P., and Smith, C. P., "A Perspective on Software Science", IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 20, No.4, 1981.Google ScholarDigital Library
- 2 Draper, N., and Smith, H., Applied Regression Analysis, Wiley Interscience, 1966.Google Scholar
- 3 Elshoff, J. L., Studies of Software Physics using PL/1 Computer Programs, General Motors Research Publication GMR-2444. June 1977.Google Scholar
- 4 Elshoff, J. L., Measuring Commercial PL/1 Programs using Halstead's Criteria, General Motors Research Publication GMR-2012, Nov 1975.Google Scholar
- 5 Fitsos, G. P., Software Science Counting Rules and Tuning Methodology, IBM Technical Report TR 03.075, September 1979.Google Scholar
- 6 Fitsos, G. P., Vocabulary Effects in Software Science, IBM Technical Report TR 03.082, Jan 1980.Google Scholar
- 7 Fitzsimmons, A., Love, T., A Review and Evaluation of Software Science, Computing Surveys, Vol.10, No.1, March 1978, pp. 3-18. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 8 Halstead, M. H., Elements of Software Science, American Elsevier, 1977. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 9 Halstead, M. H., Advances in Software Science, Advances in Computers, Vol. 18, 1980, Academic Press.Google Scholar
- 10 Halstead, M.H., and Rudolf Bayer. Algorithm Dynamics, Proceedings of ACM Annual Conference, Atlanta, Aug. 1973. pp.126-135. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 11 Halstead, M. H., Gordon, R. D., Elshoff, J. L., On Software Physics and GM's PL/1 Programs, General Motors Research Publication GMR-2175, June 1976.Google Scholar
- 12 Halstead, M. H., Zweben, S. H., The Frequency Distribution of Operators in PL/1 Programs, IEEE Trans on S/W Eng., Vol.SE-3, No.2, March 1979, p91-95.Google Scholar
- 13 Hamer, P.G., Frewin, G. D., M. H. Halstead's Software Science - A Critical Examination, ITT Technical Report No. STL 1341, July 1981.Google Scholar
- 14 Gordon, R. D., Measuring Improvements In Program Clarity, IEEE Trans. On S/W Eng., Vol.SE-5, No.-2, March 1979. pp. 79-90.Google ScholarDigital Library
- 15 Johnston, D. B. and Lister, A. M., (1979), "An Experiment in Computer Science", Proceedings of the Symposium on Language Design and Programming Methodology, Sydney, 10-11 Sept. 1979; in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 79, Springer-Verlag, 1980. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 16 Kavipurapu, K. M., Frailey, D. J., Quantification of Architectures Using Software Science, Computer Architecture News, Oct 1979, No. 10, p2-6. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 17 Kernighan, B. W., and Plauger, P. J., The Elements of Programming Style, McGraw Hill, N.Y., 1974, p. 108. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 18 Magidin, M., Viso, E., On the Experiments in Algorithm Dynamics, Technical Report, Dept of Math, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, Mexico, Vol. 1, No. 14., Oct 1976.Google Scholar
- 19 Mohanty, S. N., Models and Measurements for Quality Assessment of Software, Computing Surveys, Vol.11, No.3, Sept 1979, pp. 251-275. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 20 Ottenstein, K. J., A Program to Count Operators and Operands for ANSI-Fortran Modules. Technical Report 196, Computer Science Department, Purdue University, June 1976.Google Scholar
- 21 Smith, C. P., A Software Science Analysis of IBM Programming Products, IBM Technical Report TR 03.081, Jan. 1980.Google Scholar
- 22 Zipf, G. K. Human Behaviour and the Principle of Least Effort. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1949.Google Scholar
- 23 Zweben, S. H., A Study of The Physical Structure of Algorithms, IEEE Trans on S/W Eng, Vol.SE-3, No.3, May 1979, pp. 250-258.Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Foundations and experiments in software science
Recommendations
Foundations and experiments in software science
SCORE '82: Selected papers of the 1982 ACM SIGMETRICS workshop on Software metrics: part 2A number of papers have appeared on the subject of software science; claiming the existence of laws relating the size of a program and the number of operands and operators used. The pre-eminent theory was developed by Halstead in 1972. The thesis work ...
Comments