Current research in the Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL)

Abstract

The basic goal of software engineering is to produce the best possible software at the lowest possible cost. Many practices, tools, and techniques (collectively referred to as technologies) were developed that purport to help do this, some of which have become widely accepted in the software industry. However, few of these technologies were effectively evaluated experimentally. This is due in large part to an insufficient understanding of the software development process, a lack of recognized standards for measurement, and the prohibitive cost of large-scale controlled experiments. The analysis described addresses some of these issues. The specific objectives of this study were to: measure technology use in a production environment; develop a model for evaluating software engineering technologies; and evaluate the effects of productivity and reliability of some specific technologies.