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+===================================================+
+======= TeSting TechniqueS NewSletter (TTN) =======+
+======= ON-LINE EDITION =======+
+======= May 1996 =======+
+===================================================+
TESTING TECHNIQUES NEWSLETTER (TTN), On-Line Edition, is E-Mailed
monthly to support the Software Research, Inc. (SR) user community and
provide information of general use to the worldwide software testing
community.
(c) Copyright 1996 by Software Research, Inc. Permission to copy and/or
re-distribute is granted to recipients of the TTN On-Line Edition pro-
vided that the entire document/file is kept intact and this copyright
notice appears with it.
TRADEMARKS: STW, Software TestWorks, CAPBAK/X, SMARTS, EXDIFF,
CAPBAK/UNIX, Xdemo, Xvirtual, Xflight, STW/Regression, STW/Coverage,
STW/Advisor and the SR logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of
Software Research, Inc. All other systems are either trademarks or
registered trademarks of their respective companies.
========================================================================
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
o Ninth International Software Quality Week (QW'96) (Electronic
Registration: http://www.soft.com/QualWeek/"
o When the Pursuit of Quality Destroys Value (Part 1 of 2), by John
Favaro
o "Controlling Software Development" (New book by Lawrence Putnam
and Ware Myers)
o Call For Participation: 3rd IEEE Symposium on Requirements
Engineering (RE'97) (January 1997)
o "Handbook of Software Reliability Engineering" (New Book edited by
Michael R. Lyu)
o Software Investments Strategy (Part 1 of 3), by L. Bernstein and
C. M. Yuihas
o 7th Softwre Reliability Engineering Symposium (ISSRE'96)
o IFIP WG10.4 on Dependable Computing and Fault Tolerance.
o TTN SUBMITTAL POLICY
o TTN SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
========================================================================
NINTH INTERNATIONAL SOFTWARE QUALITY WEEK (QW'96)
21-24 May 1996
Sheraton Palace Hotel, San Francisco, California
CONFERENCE THEME: QUALITY PROCESS CONVERGENCE
[NOTE: Register online at http://www.soft.com/QualWeek/ or by calling +1
(415) 550-3020, or by Email to qw@soft.com.]
Advances in technology have swept the computing industry to new heights
of innovation. The astonishing growth of the InterNet and the WWW, the
maturation of client-server technology, and the emerging developments
with C++ and Sun's Java Language (tm) are illustrations of the rapid
deployment we are seeing the 1990s. For software quality to keep track
of existing methods, approaches and tools have to be thought of in
well-structured ``process models'' that apply quality control and test
methods in a reasoned, practical way.
Quality Process Convergence - making sure that applied quality tech-
niques produce real results at acceptable costs - is the key to success.
The Ninth International Software Quality Week focuses on software test-
ing, analysis, evaluation and review methods that support and enable
process thinking. Quality Week '96 brings the best quality industry
thinkers and practitioners together to help you keep the competitive
edge.
CONFERENCE SPONSORS
The QW'96 Conference is sponsored by SR Institute, in cooperation the
IEEE Computer Society (Technical Council on Software Engineering) and
the ACM. Members of the IEEE and ACM receive a 10% discount off all
registration fees.
TECHNICAL PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
The Pre-Conference Tutorial Day offers expert insights on ten key topic
areas. The Keynote presentations give unique perspectives on trends in
the field and recent technical developments in the community, and offer
conclusions and recommendations to attendees.
The General Conference offers four parallel-track presentations, mini-
tutorials and a debate:
General Technical Track Topics: OO Testing, Specifications, Ada,
Statistical Methods, Rule-Based Testing, Class Testing, Testabil-
ity.
General Applications Track Topics: Decision Support, Mission-
Critical, Innovative Process, Internal Risk, GUI Testing, New
Approaches.
General Management Track Topics: QA Delivery, Testing Topics, Pro-
cess Improvement - I, Process Improvement - II, Metrics to Reduce
Risk, Process Improvement - III, Success Stories.
Quick-Start Mini-Tutorial Track includes: An Overview of Model
Checking, Software Reliability Engineered Testing Overview, Teach-
ing Testers: Obstacles and Ideas, Testing Object-Oriented Soft-
ware: A Hierarchical Approach, Best Current Practices in Software
Quality, A History of Software Testing and Verification, Software
Testing: Can We Ship It Yet?
Q U A L I T Y W E E K ' 9 6
C O N F E R E N C E P R O G R A M
TUESDAY, 21 MAY 1996 (TUTORIAL DAY)
Tutorial Day offers ten lectures in two time slots on current issues and
technologies. You can choose one tutorial from each of the two time
slots.
Tuesday, 21 May 1996, 8:30 - 12:00 -- AM Half-Day Tutorials
Mr. Robert V. Binder (System Consulting Inc.) "Object-Oriented System
Testing: The FREE Approach"
Dr. Boris Beizer (ANALYSIS) "An Overview Of Testing Unit, Integration,
System"
Dr. Walt Scacchi (University of Southern California) "Understanding
Software Productivity"
Mr. Lech Krzanik (CCC Software Professionals Oy) "BOOTSTRAP: A European
Software Process Assessment and Improvement Method"
Mr. John D. Musa (AT&T Bell Labs) "Software Reliability Engineered Test-
ing"
Tuesday, 21 May 1996, 1:30 - 5:00 -- PM Half-Day Tutorials
Mr. Hans-Ludwig Hausen (GMD Gesellschaft fur Mathematik und Datenverar-
beitung mbH) "Software Quality Evaluation and Certification"
Dr. Norman F. Schneidewind (Naval Postgraduate School) "Software Relia-
bility Engineering for Client-Server Systems"
Mr. William J. Deibler, Mr. Bob Bamford (Software Systems Quality Con-
sulting) "Models for Software Quality -- Comparing the SEI Capability
Maturity Model (CMM) to ISO 9001"
Mr. Dan Craigen, Mr. Ted Ralston (ORA Canada) "An Overview of Formal
Methods"
Mr. Tom Gilb (Independent Consultant) "Software Inspection"
22-24 MAY 1996 -- QUALITY WEEK '96 CONFERENCE
Wednesday, 22 May 1996, 8:30 - 12:00 -- OPENING KEYNOTES
Mr. Walter Ellis (Or Equivalent) (Software Process and Metrics) "NSC:
A Prospectus And Status Report (Keynote)"
Mr. Tom Gilb (Independent Consultant) "The `Result Method' for Qual-
ity Process Convergence (Keynote)"
Prof. Leon Osterweil (University of Massachusetts Amherst) "Perpetu-
ally Testing Software (Keynote)"
Dr. Watts Humphrey (Carnegie Mellon University) "What if Your Life
Depended on Software?" (Keynote)"
Wednesday, 22 May 1996, 1:30 - 5:00 -- PM Parallel Tracks
Three regular parallel tracks with four papers per track: TECHNOLOGY,
APPLICATIONS, MANAGEMENT. (See the Conference Brochure for complete
details.)
QUICK START TRACK MINI-TUTORIALS
Mr. Daniel Jackson (Carnegie Mellon University) "An Overview of Model
Checking"
Mr. John D. Musa (AT&T Bell Labs) "Software Reliability Engineered
Testing Overview"
S P E C I A L E V E N T
Dr. Boris Beizer, Mr. Tom Gilb (Independent Consultants) "Testing Vs.
Inspection -- THE GREAT DEBATE"
Thursday, 23 May 1996, 8:30 - 12:00 -- AM Parallel Tracks
Three regular parallel tracks with four papers per track: TECHNOLOGY,
APPLICATIONS, MANAGEMENT. (See the Conference Brochure for complete
details.)
QUICK START TRACK MINI-TUTORIALS
Mr. James Bach (STL) "Teaching Testers: Obstacles and Ideas"
Mr. Shel Siegel (Objective Quality Inc.) "Testing Object Oriented
SW: A Hierarchical Approach"
Thursday, 23 May 1996, 8:30 - 12:00 -- PM Parallel Tracks
Three regular parallel tracks with four papers per track: TECHNOLOGY,
APPLICATIONS, MANAGEMENT. (See the Conference Brochure for complete
details.)
QUICK START TRACK MINI-TUTORIALS
Mr. Tom Drake (NSA Software Engineering Center) "Best Current Prac-
tices In Software Quality Engineering"
Prof. Leon Osterweil, Dan Craigen (University of Massachusetts
Amherst) "A History of Software Testing and Verification"
Friday, 24 May 1996, 8:30 - 10:00 -- AM Parallel Tracks
Three regular parallel tracks with four papers per track: TECHNOLOGY,
APPLICATIONS, MANAGEMENT. (See the Conference Brochure for complete
details.)
QUICK START TRACK MINI-TUTORIALS
Mr. Roger W. Sherman, Mr. Stuart Jenine (Microsoft Corporation)
"Software Testing: Can We Ship It Yet?"
Friday, 24 May 1996, 10:30 - 1:00 -- CLOSING KEYNOTES
Mr. Guenther R. Koch (European Software Institute) "The European
Software Institute As A Change Agent (KEYNOTE)"
Mr. Clark Savage Turner (Software Engineering Testing) "Legal Suffi-
ciency of Safety-Critical Testing Process (Keynote)"
Dr. Boris Beizer (ANALYSIS) "Software *is* Different KEYNOTE"
Dr. Edward Miller (Software Research) "Conference Conclusion"
R E G I S T R A T I O N F O R Q U A L I T Y W E E K
Contact SR/Institute at Email: qw@soft.com; Phone: +1 (415) 550-3020;
FAX +1 (415) 550-3030. Register for QW'96 electronically at
"http://www.soft.com/QualWeek/".
========================================================================
WHEN THE PURSUIT OF QUALITY DESTROYS VALUE (Part 1 of 2)
John Favaro,
Intecs Sistemi S.p.A.
ITALY
New views of mature ideas on software and quality productivity.
Note: In this article software engineering expert John Favaro points out
how our software efforts are embedded in the larger, more complex busi-
ness world. Quality must be considered in that context.
(Part 1 of 2)
Quality has been hailed by software engineers as the solution to many of
the most urgent challenges facing our industry in the 1990s, ranging
from technical concerns - such as safety and reliability - to strategic
concerns - such as market share, customer satisfaction, and economic
profit. Today, our industry is adopting the ISO 9000 quality framework
with the same enthusiasm we showed for Total Quality Management in the
1980s. Yet consider this: Paul Taylor and international management con-
sulting firm A.T. Kearney recently estimated that less than 20 percent
of the companies that implemented TQM programs reported any financial
improvement ("Such an Elusive Quality," Financial Times, Feb. 14, 1992).
How can this be?
Surely, the relentless pursuit of quality can dramatically improve the
technical characteristics of a software product or service. In some
applications - medical instruments, air-navigation systems, and many
defense-related systems - the need to provide a certain level of quality
is beyond debate. But is quality really a framework for strategic deci-
sion making in the broader, commercial marketplace?
Many contributors to this column have argued that, as our industry
matures and becomes ever more central to a company's business, software
engineers must become familiar with many viewpoints. For example,
Suzanne Robertson took a systems perspective ("Visibility: The Key to
Quality Improvement," July 1995, pp. 95-97). Here I will shift the per-
spective to that of the corporate strategic analyst. When you take this
view, I think you will be surprised to discover how tenuous the linkage
between quality, competitive position, and profit can be.
STRATEGIC PROBLEMS. Marakon Associates, a consulting firm specializing
in value-based management, notes that "as an operating philosophy TQM
may be without peer. But as a framework for strategic decision-making,
it fails to address many of the fundamental issues that most affect a
company's long-term competitive and financial performance." The Value
Imperative provides an excellent distillation of the Marakon directors'
Commentary series (James McTaggart et al., The Free Press, 1994). Let's
consider how some of their arguments apply to quality as it is practiced
in the software industry today.
PROFITABLE MEASURES? We must identify the right quality measures to
improve the quality that will product a better financial performance.
Quality metrics per se, such as performance measures or defect rates,
make no explicit strategic or economic statement. For example, a bank
recently encouraged its loan officers to minimize the percentage of bad
loans, which might be thought of as "defects." Instead of minimizing
the loan "defect rate," the bank discovered that loan officers achieved
the goal of making fewer bad loans by lowering the overall number of
loans they made. This practice actually brought in less money.
In the software market, developers of today's syntax-directed HTML edi-
tors are finding that many experienced users who need the flexibility to
experiment with new or subtle features consider a strict, constant
adherence to existing HTML syntax ad defect rather than a virtue.
QUALITY PRICING. TQM provides no framework for assessing whether custo-
mers will pay higher prices for more quality. In our industry, we must
always take into account the rapid evolution of software's underlying
technology and the relatively short life cycle of our products. When
Borland's Turbo Pascal compiler appeared on the market several years
ago, its blindingly fast compilation speeds on the 8-bit machines of
the day differentiated it successfully from its slower competitors.
Today, customers know that a significantly faster CPU chip is always
just a few months away, and will thus spend little time evaluating the
relative speeds of available compilers.
From a strategic perspective, we should evaluate all investments in
quality with respect to their contribution to building a competitive
advantage. There are two primary drivers of competitive advantage:
- lower production costs and - product differentiation (the ability to
set a premium price for a product because it offers a meaningful advan-
tage over its competitors).
We have long appreciated the value of quality in decreasing software-
production costs, especially through reduced maintenance. But quality
for quality's sake yields few benefits toward differentiating a product.
Indeed, quality makes no statement about product pricing strategies.
Knowing how much to charge for improved quality can be as important for
financial performance as knowing how to assure improved quality in the
first place. In today's volatile software market, where upgrades are
provided at a mere fraction of the original's price and products are
often distributed free on the Internet in the hopes of the future finan-
cial returns, pricing strategies have taken on a greater and more com-
plex role than in many other industries.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
About the Author: John Favaro is a senior consultant at Intecs Sistemi
(http://www.pisa.intecs.it) in Pisa, Italy. He may be contacted at
favaro@pisa.intecs.it.
========================================================================
Controlling Software Development
Lawrence H. Putnam and Ware Myers
NOTE: This book is one of the first in a new series of books being pro-
duced the IEEE Computer Society under the title of "Executive Briefing".
These volumes aim to present a carefully balanced picture of a particu-
lar technology to the technically astute but not necessarily expert
reader. -EFM
This briefing is aimed primarily at executives with no particular back-
ground in software. This audience includes vice presidents with respon-
sibility for several functional areas, one of which is software; divi-
sion general managers directing all functions within a profit center;
and chief executive officers. We contend that a general executive
without professional experience in software development can oversee this
function. This briefing helps you sort out the knowledge you need to
operate effectively at your level. This executive briefing covers the
two aspects of software development that you need to concern yourself
with. One is progress of individual projects. The other is the long-
run improvement of the software process. This text deals with software
development both at the project-control level and the process-investment
level in a degree of detail that the overburdened executive has time to
accommodate.
Contents:
Preface Something Old, Something New The Key Metric: Process Produc-
tivity The Key Estimate: Size Estimating Schedule and Effort Forecast-
ing Defects Managers Control Schedule-and Influence Results Thereby Mon-
itoring Project Progress You May Not Realize-How Poor the Typical
Organization is The Key Process Metric: Process Productivity Managing
Development Contracts with the Process-Productivity Metric Process
Improvement: Personal and Organizational Putting it All Together
Published by:
IEEE Computer Society Press
10662 Los Vaqueros Circle
P.O. Box 3014
Los Alamitos, CA 90720-1264
IEEE Computer Society Press Order Number BR07452; Library of Congress
Number 95-52100; ISBN 0-8186-7452-0.
========================================================================
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
Third IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering (RE'97)
5-8 January, 1997
Annapolis MD, USA
Sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society (pending)
In cooperation with ACM SIGSOFT and
IFIP Working Group 2.9 (Software Requirements Engineering)
OVERVIEW
Requirements engineering is the branch of software engineering concerned
with the real-world goals for, functions of, and constraints on software
systems. It is also concerned with the relationship of these factors to
precise specifications of software behavior, and to their evolution over
time and across software families.
This symposium, to be held in Annapolis, Maryland (located near the
Washington D.C. metropolis) will bring together researchers and practi-
tioners of requirements engineering for an exchange of ideas and experi-
ence. The program will consist of invited talks, paper presentations,
panels, tutorials, working groups, demonstrations, and a doctoral con-
sortium.
In addition to the paper track, the program will include, for the
first time in the RE symposia series, a parallel industrial track for
developers, managers interested in products with potential near-term
payoff, also researchers interested in industry-relevant problems or
requirements technology. The industrial track will include invited
talks and presentations on industrial experiences and upcoming commer-
cial tools.
Papers describing original research in any area of requirements
engineering are invited for submission. Symposium organizers extend a
special invitation for paper submission and participation to research-
ers and practitioners working in areas that have been under-
represented in past symposia, including high assurance, safety- or
mission-critical systems and formal approaches to requirements engineer-
ing.
This call for participation is also available by anonymous ftp from
ftp.cs.toronto.edu ( /dist/ISRE97/CFP ) or see the WWW page at
http://www.itd.nrl.navy.mil/conf/ISRE97.
Contact: Dr. Jean-Claude Laprie, LAAS-CNRS, 7, Avbenue du Colonel Roche,
31400 Toulouse, FRANCE. Email: laprie@laas.fr. Phone: +1 (33)
61.33.62.39. FAX: +1 (33) 61.55.35.77.
========================================================================
New Book: Handbook of Software Reliability Engineering
EDITOR: Michael R. Lyu
CONTRIBUTORS: Sarah Brocklehurst, Ram Chillarege, Mary Donnelly, Joanne
B. Dugan, Bill Everett, William Farr, Gene Fuoco, Robert Horgan, Nancy
Irving, Ravi Iyer, Wendell Jones, Bruce Juhlin, Karama Kanoun, N.
Karunanithi, Taghi Khoshgoftaar, Diane Kropfl, Jean-Claude Laprie,
Inhwan Lee, Bev Littlewood, Michael R. Lyu, Yashwant Malaiya, Aditya
Mathur, David McAllister, John Munson, John Musa, Allen Nikora, George
Stark, Robert Tausworthe, Mladen Vouk, Geoff A. Wilson
FOREWORDS: Alfred V. Aho and Richard A. DeMillo
"This book is must reading for all software engineers concerned with
software reliability." -- A. Aho
"This is a book that will be the standard by which the field is measured
for years to come." -- R. DeMillo
Publishers: McGraw-Hill and IEEE Computer Society Press
Date of publication: March, 1996
17 chapters, 2 appendices, 850 pp.
1 CD-ROM (including 4 key tools and 45 data sets)
Hardbound
ISBN: 0-07-039400-8
Price: $72.50
Contact: The McGraw-Hill Companies, 11 West 19th Street - 4th Floor, New
York, NY 10011. Fax: (212)337-4092, 1-800-722-4726
To preview the book, see:
http://www.research.att.com/orgs/ssr/book/reliability
========================================================================
Software Investments Strategy (Part 1 of 3)
by
Lawrence Bernstein and C. M. Yuhas
Setting up a software shop requires investments. The problem the indus-
try faces is that there is no agreement about where one gets the big-
gest payoff for each new dollar invested. The problem is that software
science is soft and has not lent itself to mass production techniques.
Software is too broad a topic to have a single solution and folks need
to think about the domains of software before making an investment. The
investments producing real time safety critical systems are far dif-
ferent from those needed for order entry systems. But one thing we can
agree on is that the programmer makes the difference.
Programmer Skill
The most important factor in developing software is the productivity of
the programmer. This productivity is correlated to the programmer's
skill, the difficulty of the problem being solved, the nature of the
customer relationship, and the tools and technology available. Spend-
ing money on each factor reduces the cost of software
development[Mills88].
The very best programmers are as much as twenty times more productive
than average ones[Pres94]. So it is vital to attract and keep the best.
While over half the programmers consider themselves the 'best,' only one
percent are actually in this class. The culture of the organization is
key to attracting these master programmers. Culture defines the way
things are done.
For example, code inspections are very effective unless insisting on
them across the board drives out the masters. Pay the masters twice the
rate of the journeymen, give them the best in workstations and software
tools and assign apprentices to work with them. Expect that their soft-
ware will be 'bug free" and well designed, yet allow them to iterate
their designs. Typically these Masters spend 5-10 hours per week just
polishing their craft. The question is how to objectively find them.
Since the Master Programmer is a specialist in a problem domain and is
skilled at using selected tools it is difficult to generalize, yet the
subjectivity in identifying them and what constitutes good software con-
tributes to misunderstanding between the programming staff and the
marketing/operations/business types. Reed Harrison, a product manager,
points out, "The intriguing part to me is that the best software leaders
somehow always know or can get a very quick and accurate sense of who
the Masters are, where they work best and what tools they need. We need
to figure out how to get the filter leaders use out of their 'gut' and
into a best current practice."
Hiring Masters is difficult, often we grow them. First you require an
attractive environment. The talented folks have to have heard of you as
an exciting, fun place. Sometimes exciting/fun is in contradiction to
successful, so there can be difficulties. Second you have to have a
strong incentive. Third you have to recognize talent. This is very hard
to do. It's easy to find someone who is a competent, even a very good,
program designer, but that person might not have the right stuff. I
always looked for other, related talents and interests - music, art, an
esoteric hobby. I tried to find people with equally well-developed left
and right brains. I looked for pride and perseverance.
These Master Programmers should be exempt from processes they find
onerous. I have been able to integrate some into the work force where
they provide special skills to a product team. My approach has been to
let the local management make process exceptions and where this was not
abused I had spectacular results. We need processes and controls but not
doctrine. They are engineered by process experts and the developers can
"stop the line' and get process changes nimbly. This is a living exam-
ple of my observation that "you can never fix poor managers with formal
processes."
My success in large projects was to create a culture, with people at key
interface points. The people who defined and implemented processes were
not the same as those that developed the system. The critical limiting
resource was top notch first line supervisors who acted as lead techni-
cal folks. My goal was to free them from many overhead tasks. Manage-
ment was able to manage by exception.
This is an important body of research. I hope someone gets interested
in the anthropological view of software development.
Problem Difficulty
Once the requirements are in hand it is vital to invest in
prototyping[Boeh84] with an eye to understanding the requirements and to
simplify the problem. Fully thirty percent of the development needs to
be spent in this design phase with an eye to reducing problem complex-
ity. To measure this, compute the number of function points from the
requirements. Now, target a 40% reduction in function points during this
design stage. Make sure the special problems of reliability, throughput
and response time are addressed in the prototypes along with the
features. Use tools such as Checkpoint or COCOMO to estimate staffing
and schedules[Jone86]. Only once this design phase is completed should
the specification put under change control.
Customer Relations
Projects with teaming relations with customers are twice as productive
as those with contractual ones[Wals77]. The most productive organiza-
tions build to cost rather then to specification and insist on monthly
demonstrations with the customer. For fixed priced contracts the risk
is that customer expectations will exceed the available resources, but
it is best to discover this early. Investment in creating close rela-
tions with the end user and thereby training the programmer's in the
problem domain is a must..
Tools and Technology
Sometimes standing back from a picture allows its form to emerge. When
we filter out individual theories and opinions, there are valuable data
in many productivity articles and books that can be plotted to show a
trend. It is this trend that may prove valuable for projections into the
future. Perhaps this is a unique way to view data garnered from many
different sources because it normalizes out sociological effects, busi-
ness concerns peculiar to one industry, and styles of programming teams.
If we can see how far we have come in writing efficiently for computers,
we may be able to judge the best bet for investing in the future. What
are these data?
The data sifted out of the literature are the tools, processes and tech-
nology that expand the power of the programmer[Arth83]. Each technolog-
ical advance that allows a programmer to expand the effect of a single
line of written code in terms of the number of machine instructions that
are executed as a result[Dijk72]. For this discussion, let us call that
relative productivity the "EXPANSION FACTOR." The expansion factor is
the explosion of a written line of code into its actual machine code,
expressed as a ratio. The higher the expansion factor, the less the
programmer has to write to achieve the completion of a job.
The tendency in the industry is to focus on each advance as the ultimate
solution and to adopt too narrow a view. When combined into a total
technology program a trend emerges that indicates an order of magnitude
increase in programmer productivity every twenty years.
An expansion factor of 475 is the combined effect of all previous tech-
nologies including the impact of object-oriented programming as a ratio
to machine level programming of the early 1960s. I project an expansion
factor of 638 for large-scale reuse by the year 2000. It is based on
the assumption of the development of a theory of software stability that
will prevent system hangs or crashes resulting from small changes in the
environment or in the reused software.
Shall we say, like Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire's Candide, "Every day in
every way we're getting better and better in this, the best of all pos-
sible worlds?" There is more to this than cheerleading. The expansion
factor is essentially an independent variable, rather than a collection
of isolated data points. The expansion factor represents a capital
investment in terms of higher level languages and tools to promote
growth over time. But what is the right strategy?
Certainly organizations must stay current with the state of the practice
and make capital investments to keep up. Productivity as derived from
the expansion factor will grow at the rate of 12%. Those using UNIX(tm)
and its C libraries achieve 20% reuse even without this extra effort.
( T O B E C O N T I N U E D )
Editors Note: Lawrence Bernstein is a frequent contributor to TTN-
Online. C. M. Yuhas is a freelance writer whose articles have appeared
in many IEEE publications, UNIX Review, DATAMATION, in COMPUTERWORLD and
in the International Journal of Systems and Network Management.
CONTACT INFORMATION: C. M. Yuhas, Freelance Writer, 4 Marion Ave. Short
Hills, NJ 07078.
========================================================================
The Seventh International Symposium on
Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE'96)
Crowne Plaza Hotel, White Plains, NY
October 30, 1996 - November 2, 1996
WWW URL: http://www.research.ibm.com/softeng
As greater fractions of revenue in the information technology business
move to software and services, so does the customer's focus. This fact
coupled with the recognition that software continues as one of the weak-
est links from a reliability perspective makes this area of study criti-
cal. Yet, the serious concerns on software reliability tend to be raised
in only some quarters of the industry and not all. There are several
theories why this may be the case. Some of them have to do with the
changes in expectations of a society whose time constant is usually
longer than that of technological changes. Thus, in the next few years
some of the issues that have been debated under this forum, will become
critical in the software business. We would like this symposium to
focus on all aspects of software reliability engineering and provide the
leadership to the software industry.
Topics covered in the conference are expected to include: collection
and analysis of software reliability data, software reliability model-
ing, the role of software reliability engineering in software processes
(including appropriate process models, reliability-driven software pro-
cess control, maintenance and management issues), the role of software
testing and validation in achieving reliability goals, specification and
design of reliable software-based systems (including software fault
tolerance and hardware/software interactions), software metrics, empiri-
cal studies, approaches and tools that promote software reliability
technology transfer to practice, and software reliability accreditation
issues (including standards and legal implications).
Related Meetings:
The 15th Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS'96) will be
held at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, October 23-25 1996. Contact: David
Taylor (University of Waterloo, e-mail: dtaylor@ccnga.uwaterloo.ca).
The ASQC Fifth International Conference on Software Quality will be held
at Ottawa, Canada, October 28-30 1996. Contact: Mike Mayor (e-mail:
mikem@firstmrk.ott.hookup.net).
The 1996 International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM'96) will
be held at Monterey California, November 4-8 1996. Contact: Norman
Schneidewind (Naval Postgraduate School, e-mail:
0442P%NAVPGS.BITNET@cmsa.Berkeley.EDU).
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ISSRE'96 PC Chair:
Michael R. Lyu
AT&T Laboratories, Room 2A413 Tel: +1 (908)582-5366
600 Mountain Avenue Fax: +1 (908)582-3063
Murray Hill, NJ 07974-0636 Email: lyu@research.att.com
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IFIP WG10.4 on DEPENDABLE COMPUTING AND FAULT TOLERANCE
The Working Group WG 10.4 of IFIP was established by the IFIP General
Assembly in October 1980, and operates under IFIP Technical Committee
TC-10, "Digital Systems Design". The charter of WG 10.4 (established
1980, revised 1988) states the aim and the scope of this Working Group
as follows:
Aim: Increasingly, individuals and organizations are developing or pro-
curing sophisticated computing systems on whose services they need to
place great reliance. In differing circumstances, the focus will be on
differing properties of such services - e.g. continuity, performance,
real-time response, ability to avoid catastrophic failures, prevention
of deliberate privacy intrusions. The notion of dependability, defined
as the trustworthiness of a computing system which allows reliance to be
justifiably placed on the service it delivers, enables these various
concerns to be subsumed within a single conceptual framework. Dependa-
bility thus includes as special cases such attributes as reliability,
availability, safety, security. The Working Group is aimed at identify-
ing and integrating approaches, methods and techniques for specifying,
designing, building, assessing, validating, operating and maintaining
computer systems which should exhibit some or all of these attributes.
Scope: Specifically, the Working Group is concerned with progress in:
(1) Understanding of faults (accidental faults, be physical, design-
induced, originating from human interaction; intentional faults) and
their effects.
(2) Specification and design methods for dependability.
(3) Methods for error detection and processing, and for fault treatment.
(4) Validation (testing, verification, evaluation) and design for testa-
bility and verifiability.
(5) Assessing dependability through modeling and measurement.
The concept of WG 10.4 was formulated during the IFIP Working Conference
on Reliable Computing and Fault Tolerance on September 27-29, 1979 in
London, England, held in conjunction with the Europ-IFIP 79 Conference.
Profs A. Avizienis (UCLA, Los Angeles, USA) and A. Costes (LAAS-CNRS,
Toulouse, France), who organized the London Conference and proposed the
formation of the Working Group were appointed as Chairman and Vice
Chairman, respectively, of the new WG 10.4 in 1980 and served until
1986, when Dr. J.C. Laprie (LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France) succeeded to
serve as Chairman, and Profs J. Meyer (University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, USA), and Y. Tohma (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan) became
Vice Chairmen of the Working Group.
The first meeting of the new WG 10.4 took place in Portland, Maine, USA,
on June 22-23,1981. In attendance were 29 founding members of the Work-
ing Group. Since then, the membership has grown to 52 members from 15
countries. Twenty eight WG 10.4 meetings have been held from 1981
through 1993 in various locations, including USA (14 meetings), France
(5), Canada (2), and Italy, Australia, Austria, India, Japan, Tunisia,
England (1 each).
The main goal of WG 10.4 meetings is to conduct in-depth discussions of
important technical topics. A principal theme since the first meeting
has been the understanding and exposition of the fundamental concepts of
dependable computing. Other major topics have been: distributed comput-
ing, parallel computing, real-time systems, certification of dependable
systems, specification methods, design diversity, specification and
validation of hard dependability requirements, methodologies for experi-
ments, VLSI testing and fault tolerance, hardware-and-software testing
and validation, fault tolerance in new architectures, communication net-
works, algorithms for distributed agreement, cars and computers,
accidental vs. intentional faults, robotics and dependability, limits in
dependability, avionics, dependability issues in medical computing,
security and dependability, tools for dependable system design and
evaluation. Besides the key themes, research reports by members and
guests are presented at every meeting, and business meetings are held to
plan future activities.
In addition to group meetings, five IFIP Working Conferences on Depend-
able Computing for Critical Applications have been organized by WG 10.4
in August 1989, in Santa Barbara, California, USA, in February 1990, in
Tucson, Arizona, USA, in September 1992, in Palermo, Sicilia, Italy, in
San Diego, California, USA, in January 1994, and in Urbana-Champain,
USA, in September 1995. Beginning in 1982 the WG 10.4 has served as a
cooperating sponsor of the annual International Symposium on Fault-
Tolerant Computing that is organized by the TC on Fault-Tolerant Comput-
ing of the IEEE Computer Society. Since 1983, the WG 10.4 also
cooperates with the "Safety, Security, and Reliability" technical com-
mittee (TC 7) of EWICS, the European Workshop on Industrial Computer
Systems, and other groups in sponsorship of the IFAC SAFECOMP Workshops.
The Working Group initiated in 1987 the series Dependable Computing and
Fault-Tolerant Systems, published by Springer-Verlag. Nine volumes have
been published so far, including a five-language volume (English,
French, German, Italian and Japanese) on the Basic Concepts of Dependa-
bility and the associated terminology.
For information contact the Chairman:
Dr. Jean-Claude Laprie
LAAS-CNRS
7, Avenue du Colonel Roche
31400 Toulouse
France
E-mail: laprie@laas.fr
Tel: +(33) 61 33 62 39
Fax: +(33) 61 55 35 77
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