Chapter 1 Overview

01.23.2024

• Meeting People’s Quality Expectations
• Book Organization/Overview/Usage
• Pre-requisite Knowledge

1.1 General Expectations

• General expectation: “good” software quality

• Objects of our study: software

• software products, systems, and services

• stand-alone to embedded

• software-intensive systems

• wide variety, but focus on software

• Quality (and how “good”) formally defined in Ch.2

• People: Consumers vs producers

• quality expectations by consumers

• to be satisfied by producers through software quality engineering (SQE)

• Deliver software system that...

• does what it is supposed to do
  • needs to be “validated”
• does the things correctly
  • needs to be “verified”
• show/demonstrate/prove it (“does”)
  • modeling/analysis needed

1.2 Meeting Quality Expectations

• Difficulties in achieving good quality:
• size: MLOC products common
• complexity
• environmental stress/constraints

• flexibility/adaptability expected

• Other difficulties/factors:

• product type
• cost and market conditions

• addressed later (especially Part III)

• “no silver bullet”, but... SQE (software quality engineering) helps

1.3 SQE as an Answer

• Major SQE activities:
• Testing: remove defect & ensure quality
• Other QA alternatives to testing

• How do you know: analysis & modeling

• Scope and content hierarchy: Fig.1.1 (p.6).

Quality assurance 质量保证

1.4 Book Contents

• QA alternatives/SQE activities:

(and mapping to our Parts/Chapters)

• Overview and Basics (Part I)

• QA alternatives:

• Testing (Part II)

• Other alternatives (Part III)

• Overall comparison (Ch.17)

• Analysis and improvement (Part IV)

• overall mechanism (Ch.18)
• measurements/models (Ch.19)

• specific analyses/models (Ch.20∼22)

• Testing (Part II):

• all topics, but focus on techniques
• overview and general questions (Ch.6)
• important common issues (Ch.7)
  • activities/management/automation
• testing techniques (Ch.8∼11)

• specialization and integration (Ch.12)

• Testing techniques (Ch.8∼11):

• organized by underlying models:
  • lists and partitions (Ch.8&9)
  • finite-state machines (Ch.10&11)
• both black-box and white-box views
  • all chapters

• both coverage goals (all chapters) and usage/reliability goals (Ch.8&10)

• Other alternatives (Part III):

• defect prevention (Ch.13)
• inspection, review, analysis (Ch.14)
• formal verification (Ch.15)
• defect containment (Ch.16)

• comparison, including testing, (Ch.17)

• Comparing different QA alternative

• applicability and effectiveness
• dealing with quality problems/defects:
  • prevention/removal/tolerance
• cost
• overall comparison (Ch.17)

1.4 Content Dependency

• Dependency: Fig 1.2 (p.10) above

• Essential (solid-lines): prior knowledge

• Part I precedes other (parallel?) parts.

• Non-essential (dashed-lines) sequence,

  e.g., simple→complex/top-down/etc.

依赖性:图1.2 (p.10)

必要的(实线):先前的知识

第一部分先于其他部分(平行的?)

• 非必要(虚线)序列;

例如,简单→复杂/自上而下/等。

1.5 Usage and Readership

• Math/statistics pre-requisite:
• discrete math, logic, graph, etc.
• probability and statistics

• used in modeling/analysis.

• Background knowledge in CS/SE:

• computer systems and programming
• fundamentals of computing

• general SE knowledge and experience

• Detailed lists: Section 1.4

• review/self-study for specific topic