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In the context of software engineering, software quality refers to two related but distinct notions that exist wherever quality is defined in a business context: * Software functional quality reflects how well it complies with or conforms to a given design, based on functional requirements or specifications. That attribute can also be described as the fitness for purpose of a piece of software or how it compares to competitors in the marketplace as a worthwhile product;〔Pressman, Scott (2005), Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach (Sixth, International ed.), McGraw-Hill Education 〕 * Software structural quality refers to how it meets non-functional requirements that support the delivery of the functional requirements, such as robustness or maintainability, the degree to which the software was produced correctly. Structural quality is evaluated through the analysis of the software inner structure, its source code, at the unit level, the technology level and the system level, which is in effect how its architecture adheres to sound principles of software architecture outlined in a paper on the topic by OMG.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=How to Deliver Resilient, Secure, Efficient, and Easily Changed IT Systems in Line with CISQ Recommendations )〕 In contrast, functional quality is typically enforced and measured through software testing. Historically, the structure, classification and terminology of attributes and metrics applicable to software quality management have been derived or extracted from the ISO 9126-3 and the subsequent ISO 25000:2005 quality model, also known as SQuaRE. Based on these models, the Consortium for IT Software Quality (CISQ) has defined five major desirable structural characteristics needed for a piece of software to provide business value: Reliability, Efficiency, Security, Maintainability and (adequate) Size. Software quality measurement quantifies to what extent a software or system rates along each of these five dimensions. An aggregated measure of software quality can be computed through a qualitative or a quantitative scoring scheme or a mix of both and then a weighting system reflecting the priorities. This view of software quality being positioned on a linear continuum is supplemented by the analysis of "critical programming errors" that under specific circumstances can lead to catastrophic outages or performance degradations that make a given system unsuitable for use regardless of rating based on aggregated measurements. Such programming errors found at the system level represent up to 90% of production issues, whilst at the unit-level, even if far more numerous, programming errors account for less than 10% of production issues. As a consequence, code quality without the context of the whole system, as W. Edwards Deming described it, has limited value. To view, explore, analyze, and communicate software quality measurements, concepts and techniques of information visualization provide visual, interactive means useful, in particular, if several software quality measures have to be related to each other or to components of a software or system. For example, software maps represent a specialized approach that "can express and combine information about software development, software quality, and system dynamics".〔(J. Bohnet, J. Döllner ), "Monitoring Code Quality and Development Activity by Software Maps". Proceedings of the IEEE ACM ICSE Workshop on Managing Technical Debt, pp. 9-16, 2011.〕 == Motivation == "A science is as mature as its measurement tools," (Louis Pasteur in ). Measuring software quality is motivated by at least two reasons: * Risk Management: Software failure has caused more than inconvenience. Software errors have caused human fatalities. The causes have ranged from poorly designed user interfaces to direct programming errors. An example of a programming error that led to multiple deaths is discussed in Dr. Leveson's paper.〔(Medical Devices: The Therac-25 * ), Nancy Leveson, University of Washington〕 This resulted in requirements for the development of some types of software, particularly and historically for software embedded in medical and other devices that regulate critical infrastructures: "(who write embedded software ) see Java programs stalling for one third of a second to perform garbage collection and update the user interface, and they envision airplanes falling out of the sky.".〔(Embedded Software ), Edward A. Lee, To appear in Advances in Computers (M. Zelkowitz, editor), Vol. 56, Academic Press, London, 2002, Revised from UCB ERL Memorandum M01/26 University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA, November 1, 2001〕 In the United States, within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the FAA Aircraft Certification Service provides software programs, policy, guidance and training, focus on software and Complex Electronic Hardware that has an effect on the airborne product (a "product" is an aircraft, an engine, or a propeller).〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Aircraft Certification Software and Airborne Electronic Hardware )〕 * Cost Management: As in any other fields of engineering, an application with good structural software quality costs less to maintain and is easier to understand and change in response to pressing business needs. Industry data demonstrate that poor application structural quality in core business applications (such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) or large transaction processing systems in financial services) results in cost and schedule overruns and creates waste in the form of rework (up to 45% of development time in some organizations 〔(Improving Quality Through Better Requirements (Slideshow) ), Dr. Ralph R. Young, 24/01/2004, Northrop Grumman Information Technology〕). Moreover, poor structural quality is strongly correlated with high-impact business disruptions due to corrupted data, application outages, security breaches, and performance problems. However, the distinction between measuring and improving software quality in an embedded system (with emphasis on risk management) and software quality in business software (with emphasis on cost and maintainability management) is becoming somewhat irrelevant. Embedded systems now often include a user interface and their designers are as much concerned with issues affecting usability and user productivity as their counterparts who focus on business applications. The latter are in turn looking at ERP or CRM system as a corporate nervous system whose uptime and performance are vital to the well-being of the enterprise. This convergence is most visible in mobile computing: a user who accesses an ERP application on their smartphone is depending on the quality of software across all types of software layers. Both types of software now use multi-layered technology stacks and complex architecture so software quality analysis and measurement have to be managed in a comprehensive and consistent manner, decoupled from the software's ultimate purpose or use. In both cases, engineers and management need to be able to make rational decisions based on measurement and fact-based analysis in adherence to the precept ''"In God (we) trust. All others bring data".'' ((mis-)attributed to W. Edwards Deming and others). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「software quality」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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