Metrics and change management

1
Metrics and change management

• Study of software evolution needs access to
  records of change over time.
• Two relatively small, newly started projects
• Trouble reporting system (Bugzilla)
• Change management system (possibly CVS)
• Open source software.
• Questions Defining metrics and collecting data.

2
Incremental development

• Software is modified for one of the following
  reasons
• Repairing failures (corrective)
• New features (perfective)
• Adapting to new platform or external interfaces
  (adaptive)
• Restructuring the code to make it easier to
  understand and maintain (preventive)
• Incremental development, two sources of change
• Changes between releases (reflected in
  requirement specifications)
• Changes during a release
• Can we integrate these information to study
  evolution?

3
Example of a change management system (Mockus)

Software release
Date
Size (SLOC, modules)
Features/use cases
Change management system (Both trouble reports
and other changes?)
Change request
Description
delta
Date
Version control system
Developer
Lines
Modules
4
Solutions

• Possible solution
• Use Bugzilla for all types of changes during a
  release (also changes to requirements or previous
  deliveries in a release) by reporting these as
  bugs.
• Question How flexible is Bugzilla for adding new
  fields?
• How well can Bugzilla be integrated with CVS?
• Alternative
• Have another system (?) for other changes than
  bugs.
• Question How these data can be integrated?

5
Other questions

• Open source tools for collecting data
• Size of a product
• Requirement management
• Etc.