Predicting Software Error Density

Predicting Software Error Density

[Richard Dye]

I am interested in references to any articles that would help me
predict the error density in fielded software.  Has anyone done any
work or published any papers that describe the defect discovery and
fix curves over time?

Please forward to me and I will summarize for the net if there is any
interest.

Dick Dye

Dick Dye
CTA, Inc.
M/S N8910
National Test Bed
Falcon AFB, CO 80912-5000
(719) 380-2578
FAX: (719) 380-3100 (Put M/S N8910 on the first page)
dyer@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu

Re: Predicting Software Error Density

[Mick Oyer]

In article <759@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu>, dyer@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu (Richard Dye) writes:
|> 
|> I am interested in references to any articles that would help me
|> predict the error density in fielded software.  Has anyone done any
|> work or published any papers that describe the defect discovery and
|> fix curves over time?

I'm involved in doing some of this type of work here at Cray.  One or two
items of interest:

    There's an article in Business Week, 2/11/91 that talks about Japanese
    vs. American Fault Density.  According to the article, the Japanese are
    producing 12,447 lines of debugged source code per man-year, with an
    error density of 1.96 "technical failures per 1000 lines of source code".
    Us lowly Americans are producing code at a density of 4.44 TF/Kline of code.
    at a rate of 7,290 lines of code per man-year.  I especially like the last
    sentence of the article - "Luckily, U.S. software experts have been monitoring
    developments in Japan for years and still have time to learn some Japanese
    tricks before it's too late".  Where have I heard that before?

    This article is written in conjunction with a new book on the shelves:
    "Japan's Software Factories" by Michael A. Cusumano, Associate Professor
    of Mgmt. at MIT.  Looks like interesting reading.  I've got one on order,
    hopefully it will answer my question - "Where do some of these numbers come
    from?"

   | Michael (Mick) Oyer   MAIL   :  mlo@cray.com  ||  uunet!cray!mlo     |
   | Sr. Software Analyst  AT&T   :  work: (612)-683-5855                 |
   | Cray Research, Inc.   USNAIL :  655F Lone Oak Dr., Eagan, MN 55120   |
--
   | Michael (Mick) Oyer   MAIL   :  mlo@cray.com  ||  uunet!cray!mlo     |
   | Sr. Software Analyst  AT&T   :  work: (612)-683-5855                 |
   | Cray Research, Inc.   USNAIL :  655F Lone Oak Dr., Eagan, MN 55120   |