Title
Demystifying maintainability
Abstract
Due to its economic impact "maintainability" is broadly accepted as an important quality attribute of software systems. But in contrast to attributes such as performance and correctness, there is no common understanding of what maintainability actually is, how it can be achieved, measured, or assessed. In fact, every software organization of significant size seems to have its own definition of maintainability. We address this problem by defining an unique two-dimensional quality model that associates maintenance activities with system properties including the capabilities of the organization. The separation of activities and properties facilitates the identification of sound quality criteria and allows to reason about their interdependencies. The resulting quality controlling process enforces these criteria through tool-supported measurements as well as manual inspections. We report on our experiences with the incremental development of the quality model and its application to large scale commercial software projects. Among the positive effects are a slowdown of decay and a significantly increased awareness for long-term quality aspects.
Year
DOI
Venue
2006
10.1145/1137702.1137708
WoSQ@ICSE
Keywords
DocType
ISBN
unique two-dimensional quality model,software system,Demystifying maintainability,software organization,maintainability,important quality attribute,quality assessment,associates maintenance activity,resulting quality,long-term quality aspect,quality model,commercial software project,sound quality criterion,quality models
Conference
1-59593-399-9
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
9
0.63
11
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Manfred Broy12747396.13
Florian Deissenboeck277035.84
Markus Pizka326020.24