Improving and balancing software qualities

Abstract

This Technical Briefing describes the nature of Software Qualities (SQs), ilities, or non-functional requirements (reliability, usability, affordability, etc.), and discusses the importance of understanding their nature and interrelationships, and of bringing them into balance in the practice of software engineering. The relevance and timeliness of this topic reflects the current and future trends toward more software-intensive systems, with greater complexity, autonomy, speed of change, and need for interoperability within systems of systems, given the frequent system shortfalls and overruns that occur when their SQ balance is not achieved. It discusses the weaknesses of current SQ standards and guidance, and summarizes research toward strengthening current SQ definitions and relationships. This includes a set of initial SQ ontology elements and relationships, examples of their application to some key SQs, an identification of further research and development needed to make the ontology fully useful and evolvable, and the nature of an international collaborative effort to help improve current practices via a Qualipedia for accessing the evolving body of knowledge for improving SQ engineering.

"I know it when I see it" Perceptions of Code Quality

“…Although a majority of participants also agreed that they can easily tell good from bad code (Q6b; mean: 5.1), they agreed less strongly with the statement that they know how to measure code quality (Q6d; mean: 4.6). The differences 6 The scale reaches from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), see Figure 2. A mean below 4 would therefore correspond to disagreement and a mean above 4 to agreement.…”

“…The majority of participants strongly agreed that code quality is of high importance in their work, studies, or teaching (Q6a; mean: 6 on a scale from 1 to 7) 6 . Although a majority of participants also agreed that they can easily tell good from bad code (Q6b; mean: 5.1), they agreed less strongly with the statement that they know how to measure code quality (Q6d; mean: 4.6).…”

“…The ability to develop high quality software is a key learning goal of computing programs [17,23]. However, there are no universal measures to assess the quality of code and current standards are considered weak [6]. Defining the concept of "good" code is therefore a challenge faced by many educators.…”

"I know it when I see it"

“…The majority of participants strongly agreed that code quality is of high importance in their work, studies, or teaching (Q6a; mean: 6 6 . Although a majority of participants also agreed that they can easily tell good from bad code (Q6b; mean: 5.1), they agreed less strongly with the statement that they know how to measure code quality (Q6d; mean: 4.6).…”

“…The ability to develop high quality software is a key learning goal of computing programs [17,23]. However, there are no universal measures to assess the quality of code and current standards are considered weak [6]. De ning the concept of "good" code is therefore a challenge faced by many educators.…”