CMPT 473

Soware Tesng, Reliability and Security

Intro to Soware Quality
Nick Sumner
What is Soware Quality?
● Bad soware costs developers and users billions of dollars a year, but
why?
– What is `good' soware?
– What is `bad' soware?

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It is a Ma)er of Perspecve
Your role relave to the soware changes what is important to you.

● End Users
– Does the soware have all desired features?
– Can it reliably produce correct results for good input?
– Does it securely & gracefully handle bad input?
– It it easy to use?
– Is it responsive?
– Does it integrate well with other soware?

What are the consequences of missing these goals? 30

It is a Ma)er of Perspecve
● Operaonal / Deployment
– Is the soware secure from a)acks that may compromise the IT
infrastructure?
– Does the soware appropriately use resources?
(CPU, Memory, Disk Space, Bandwidth, ...)

What are the consequences of missing these goals?

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It is a Ma)er of Perspecve
● Developers
– How easy is the soware to adapt to changes in requirements?
– Can the soware be easily adapted to other systems?
– How easy is the soware to inspect and understand?
– Can components be easily examined gauged for quality?

What are the consequences of missing these goals? 40

Standardized
● ISO/IEC 9126 groups them as:

Almost:
1) Funconality
2) Reliability End User
Soware Quality 3) Usability
4) E3ciency Operaonal
5) Portability Developer
6) Maintainability
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Going Deeper
● Reliability – Doesn't just mean not having faults!
– Avoid failure resulng from soware faults
– Maintain performance in the face of faults or a)acks
– Reestablish performance and data aer a failure

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Going Deeper
● Usability- Beyond adequate to polished
– Helps user understand whether the program meets their needs
– Features & uses are easy to learn
– Easy to operate & control
– Liked!

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Going Deeper
● Maintainability- Makes developers lives easier
– Defects are easy to idenfy
– Changes are easy to understand & don't aNect other components
– The soware is easy to test

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How Can We Measure Quality?
These characteriscs may be vague or ill deCned.
So how do we do it?
● Planning
– Decide what criteria are most important
– Form a plan to assess them, directly or indirectly

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How Can We Measure Quality?
These characteriscs may be vague or ill deCned.
So how do we do it?
● Planning
● Process
– Code reviews help to improve maintainability & reduce bugs
– Regular monitoring

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How Can We Measure Quality?
These characteriscs may be vague or ill deCned.
So how do we do it?
● Planning
● Process
● Tesng!!
– Show that you meet the minimum agreed requirements
– Observe defects and performance issues.

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Quality Processes
Quality as a Process
The quality of soware comes from the quality of
the process used to build it.

Requirements
SpeciCcaon
Design
In every aspect of
Implementaon
development Tesng
Documentaon
Maintenance
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Quality as a Process
How can we assist the process?

● Synthec- Tools and techniques structured to create be)er soware

● Analycal- Tools and techniques that measure the quality of soware

● Manual- Driven interacvely by developers

● Automated- Funcon w/o developer intervenon

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Quality as a Process
Synthec Analycal
Manual ●

●
design methodologies
prototyping
●

●
walk-throughs
inspecons
● coding standards ● audits
● templates
● documentaon standards

Automated ●

●
program generators
compilers
●

●
model checkers
program veriers
● development ● program checkers
environments ● unit tesng
● integraon tesng
● system tesng 63
Quality as a Process
Integrang these into the process is a core part of the quality plan
● Set goals
● Establish pracces
● Measure progress

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