QWE2002 Paper 8T Dr. Christian Bunse & Dr. Oliver Laitenberger (Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering) Improving Component Quality Through the Systematic Combination of Construction and Analysis (Co-Best Paper - QWE2002)

Key Points

• Component-based development needs tailored and smoothly integrated quality assurance.
• SORT is a systematic technique for mapping UML models to code in high-quality.
• ACI is a systematic inspection technique for object-oriented projects.

Presentation Abstract

The reliable attainment of quality requirements is still a weakness in component -based development projects. A major reason for this situation is the isolated u se of construction and subsequent analysis activities. This paper describes a practical strategy for addressing this problem. The strategy relies on an effective combination of development guidelines as provided by the Systematic Object-Oriented Refinement and Translation (SORT) technique and rigorous quality checks of the resulting products by means of the architecture-centric inspection (ACI) approach. Both, SORT and ACI, have already been successfully applied to the KobrA development method. However, the synergy effects when used in the context of a combined strategy clearly outweighs the isolated benefits of the techniques. The integration of such a strategy into any object-oriented or component-based development method not only results in a high quality component implementation, but also significantly increases the confidence that the desired quality levels can be attained in a successful manner.

About the Author

Christian Bunse received the PHD degree in computer science from the University of Kaiserslautern Germany and his B.S. (Vordiplom) and M.S. degree (Diploma) in computer science with a minor in theoretical medicine from the University of Dortmund, Germany. From 1993 to 1995 he was a faculty research assistant of the Software-Technology-Transfer-Initiative at the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. He is currently responsible for object-technology and component-based software development at the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering in Kaiserslautern.

Oliver Laitenberger is currently a researcher and consultant at the the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE) in Kaiserslautern. His interests are centered on software quality assurance with software inspections, inspection measurement, and inspection improvement as well as experimentation. As a researcher, Oliver Laitenberger has been working for several years in the development and evaluation of inspection technology. As a consultant, he has worked with several national and international companies in introducing and improving inspections. Oliver Laitenberger received his Ph.D. and M.Sc. in computer science from the University of Kaiserslautern, in 1996 and 2000, respectively, .