Abstract
The knowledge of size of models can be very useful to perform many kinds of estimations such as effort, cost, and productivity in software development. However, to the best of our knowledge there is no universally accepted model size measure available to date. In this paper we investigate the usefulness of class-count as a size measure of models (represented with the UML). Using empirical data collected from two student experiments we validate this measure by assessing its correlation with effort spent in modeling. The results show that merely using class-count might not provide sufficient and accurate estimation of modeling effort. Furthermore, we identify some factors that hinder class-count as a good estimate of modeling effort.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Emam, K.E., Benlarbi, S., Goel, N., Melo, W., Lounis, H., Rai, S.N.: The optimal class size for object-oriented software. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 28(5), 494–509 (2002)
Dobing, B., Parsons, J.: How UML is used. Communications of the ACM 49(5), 109–113 (2006)
Vicinanza, S.S., Mukhopadhyay, T., Prietula, M.J.: Software-effort estimation: An exploratory study of expert performance. Information Systems Research 2(4), 243–262 (1991)
Caldiera, G., Antoniol, G., Fiutem, R., Lokan, C.: Definition and experimental evaluation of function points for object-oriented systems. In: METRICS 1998: Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Software Metrics, Washington, DC, USA, p. 167. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (1998)
Albrecht, A.: Measuring application development productivity. In: Press, I.B.M. (ed.) IBM Application Development Symp., October 1979, pp. 83–92 (1979)
Fetcke, T., Abran, A., Nguyen, T.H.: Mapping the OO-Jacobson approach into function point analysis. In: TOOLS 1997: Proceedings of the Tools-23: Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems, Washington, DC, USA, p. 192. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (1997)
Whitmire, S.A.: An introduction to 3D function points. Softw. Dev. 3(4), 43–53 (1995)
Minkiewicz, A.: Measuring object oriented software with predictive object points. In: Applications in Software Measurements (ASM 1997) (1997)
Costagliola, G., Ferrucci, F., Tortora, G., Vitiello, G.: Class point: an approach for the size estimation of object-oriented systems. Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions 31(1), 52–74 (2005)
Nugroho, A.: Experiment materials, http://www.liacs.nl/~anugroho
Lange, C.F.J., DuBois, B., Chaudron, M.R.V., Demeyer, S.: An experimental investigation of uml modeling conventions. In: Nierstrasz, O., Whittle, J., Harel, D., Reggio, G. (eds.) MoDELS 2006. LNCS, vol. 4199, pp. 27–41. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Lange, C.F.J.: Experiment replication package, http://www.tue.nl/~clange
T.C.U. of Hongkong: Minimum significant correlation coefficient r for a sample size, Hongkong, http://department.obg.cuhk.edu.hk/researchsupport
Lange, C.F.J., Chaudron, M.R.V., Muskens, J.: In practice: UML software architecture and design description. IEEE Softw. 23(2), 40–46 (2006)
Nugroho, A., Chaudron, M.R.V.: Managing the quality of uml models in practice. In: Rech, J., Bunse, C. (eds.) Model-Driven Software Development: Integrating Quality Assurance, Idea Group Inc. (to appear, 2008)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Nugroho, A., Lange, C.F.J. (2008). On the Relation between Class-Count and Modeling Effort. In: Giese, H. (eds) Models in Software Engineering. MODELS 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5002. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69073-3_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69073-3_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-69069-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69073-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)