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+===================================================+
+======= Quality Techniques Newsletter =======+
+======= October 2005 =======+
+===================================================+
QUALITY TECHNIQUES NEWSLETTER (QTN) is E-mailed monthly to
subscribers worldwide to support the Software Research, Inc. (SR),
eValid, and TestWorks user communities and to other interested
parties to provide information of general use to the worldwide
internet and software quality and testing community.
Permission to copy and/or re-distribute is granted, and secondary
circulation is encouraged, provided that the entire QTN
document/file is kept intact and this complete copyright notice
appears in all copies. Information on how to subscribe or
unsubscribe is at the end of this issue. (c) Copyright 2004 by
Software Research, Inc.
========================================================================
Contents of This Issue
o Special Issue on Accident & Incident Modeling & Reporting
o Trustworthy Systems Through Quantitative Software Engineering
by L. Bernstein and C. M. Yuhas
o eValid Success Story Summaries
o Mary Shaw and Jim Highsmith to Receive the 2005 Stevens Awards
o eValid News and Product Items
o 20th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Softwre
Engineering
o SEW-30: 30th Annual IEEE/NASA Software Engineering Workshop
o QTN Article Submittal, Subscription Information
========================================================================
Special Issue on Accident & Incident Modelling & Reporting
Reliability Engineering & System Safety
<http:www.elsevier.com/locate/ress>
Accident and incident investigation, modeling, and reporting play a
primary role in the safety of many different industries across the
globe.
Existing approaches are extremely diverse; the practices and
techniques that have been developed within one industry are seldom
shared by those in other areas. Similarly, techniques that have been
developed within one national industry are often completely
different from those that are used in other countries. These
observations have considerable practical consequences. It can be
difficult or impossible to exchange data among many diverse systems,
developed using different techniques. Similarly, it can be difficult
to ensure that `best practices' are effectively transferred among
industries and among nations. This special issue is intended to
provide a forum for the exchange of views about accident and
incident investigation, modeling, and reporting across many
different application domains, including but not limited to chemical
process industry, healthcare, the aviation, rail, marine and
offshore industries, and nuclear applications.
Of interest are multi-disciplinary approaches that address the
following topics, although we welcome papers that address issues
beyond these particular items:
o The integration of human factors, system engineering and
management concerns;
o Forensic software engineering and techniques for analysing
software failure;
o Appropriate investigatory techniques, eye-witness interviewing
and elicitation;
o Studies on the scope of evidence gathering following incidents
and accidents;
o Causal analysis techniques;
o Presentation and dissemination of safety-related information;
o Integrating incident and accident recommendations into broader
risk analysis and assessment;
o Incident `starvation' and the problems of under-reporting;
o Incident `saturation' and the problems of scale in incident
reporting;
o Data mining and trending techniques for incident data;
o Validation and the monitoring of incident and accident reporting
systems;
o Field studies in the application of incident and accident
reporting.
Submit papers to any of the Guest Editors, by March 1, 2006, but
inform about the intention of submitting as soon as possible.
Guest Editors
Chris Johnson, University of Glasgow, Scotland
(johnson@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
C. Michael Holloway, NASA Langley Research Center, USA
(c.m.holloway@nasa.gov)
Carlos Guedes Soares, Instituto Superior TE9cnico, Portugal
(guedess@alfa.ist.utl.pt)
========================================================================
Trustworthy Systems Through
Quantitative Software Engineering
By Lawrence Bernstein and C.M. Yuhas
"We all trust software. All too frequently, this trust
is misplaced. Larry Bernstein has created and applied
quantitative techniques to develop trustworthy software
systems. He and C.M. Yuhas have organized this
quantitative experience into a book of great value to
make software trustworthy for all of us."
-- Barry Boehm, TRW Professor of Software Engineering,
Director of Center for Software Engineering, University
of South Carolina
Software engineering provides the knowledge base for producing
reliable software products. With the availability of numerous case
studies illustrating software engineering principles, it is now
possible to measure certain approaches based on models derived from
empirical data. The first book in the Wiley Series on Quantitative
Software Engineering, TRUSTWORTHY SYSTEMS THROUGH QUANTITATIVE
SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Press; September
2005; $98.95; Cloth; 0-471-69691-9) provides an innovative,
reliability-driven software engineering approach that equips
students and professionals with a solid foundation in problem
analysis.
Offering the tools to meet customers changing needs while
maintaining projects on schedule and within budget, this book
enables developers to identify customer requirements, develop
software designs, manage a software development team, and evaluate
software products. Authors Lawrence Bernstein and C.M. Yuhas
examine the magic numbers of software engineering rules of thumb
that demonstrate how to size a project, simplify it, and compute the
expected staffing schedule. Edited by Lawrence Bernstein, the Wiley
Series on Quantitative Software Engineering is designed to support
students and professionals in the practice, process, technology, and
theory of quantitative software engineering. Each book in the
series provides examples, analyses, theories, and case histories
that define the technology and apply it to real-world problems.
Additional books to publish in the next year include Practical
Estimation in Software Engineering, Delivering Dependable Software
Systems, and World Wide Web Application Engineering and
Implementation.
TRUSTWORTHY SYSTEMS THROUGH QUANTITATIVE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING is a
practical, project-oriented resource for upper-level software and
computer science students, engineers, professional developers,
managers, and professionals involved in software engineering
projects.
About the Authors
Lawrence Bernstein, BEE, MEE, is the series editor for the Wiley
Series on Quantitative Software Engineering and Industry Research
Professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New
Jersey. A fellow of the IEEE and ACDM, he has served as Chief
Technical Officer of the Operations Systems Business Unit at Bell
Laboratories.
C.M. Yuhas, MA, is a freelance writer who has published articles on
network management in the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in
Communication and IEEE Network.
========================================================================
eValid Success Story Summaries
eValid's browser-based technology for analyzing and
testing websites has helped hundreds of customers achieve new levels
of accuracy and repeatability in their web applications. Here is a
sampling of success stories about how eValid has helped customers in
novel and unusual ways.
o Remote Measurement & Reporting: A popular auction website used
a specially packaged version of eValid to remote-capture
detailed user behavior data. The eValid package was deployed to
1000's of field computers to obtain detailed end-user
measurement of response time and performance data of how quickly
the site behaved in a battery of two dozen separate tests.
o Remote Loading: Using eValid developed functional tests and a
battery of DSL-based test machines, eValid LoadTests were able
to overload the website of a well known document storage and
manipulation website and identify major system bottlenecks.
o Download Timing: A major gaming company used eValid functional
test monitoring services to analyze the time customers need to
download their medium-sized (10 MByte) application. After
several months they were able to make server adjustments that
decreased total download times and minimized the variance in
performance their users has
o Production Monitoring: A commercial monitoring firm uses eValid
transactions on commercial basis to protect customers' website
investment by assuring availability and response time. The
service applies 1000's of plays per day -- over 2 million tests
per year -- using multiple machines and multiple levels of
sophistication.
o Search Timing: eValid scripts were used to establish actual
"below the fold" timing data for a popular web search engine.
After analysis of many weeks of data the customer made changes
in their site structure that significantly improved response
times and result customer success rates.
o Three-Tier Monitoring: A well known e-commerce site uses eValid
script-based three-tier transaction monitoring to assure
compliance with a minimum performance criteria ("a simulated
user has to be able to complete a transaction in less than 120
seconds").
o Site Comparison: On behalf of a European financial news
journal, eValid website comparisons were done of 150 different
financial institution websites. The detailed data developed in
the eValid scans of these websites was used to characterize
likely user website satisfaction in terms of response time,
quality and integrity of links, and other matters.
o VPN Appliance Testing: A manufacturer of a Virtual Private
Network appliance has been using eValid to generate large
amounts of web browsing traffic to confirm the quality and
reliability of their equipment when applied in "real world"
usage.
o Monitoring Integration: eValid has been integrated into a
well-known system monitoring system to provide transaction
oriented checking and timing support in addition to standard
forms of network status reporting. Dozens of customers are
experiencing increased quality of service (QOS) with this
combined analyzing and reporting technology. been noting.
o Custom Browser Development: A firm involved in developing a
sophisticated network monitoring system needed a customer
browser to incorporate in their product. eValid built a special
version for them, branded to their specification and dressed
with their logos. The eValid-built browser component of their
product enhanced the value of their business and helped them
attract a profitable merger with a much-larger monitoring firm.
For complete details on all of these success stories please see the
complete explanations reachable from:
http:www.soft.com/eValid/Promotion/SuccessStories/summary.html
========================================================================
Mary Shaw and Jim Highsmith to Receive the
2005 Stevens Awards
Professor Mary Shaw of Carnegie Mellon University and Jim Highsmith
of Adaptive Software Development have each been named as a 2005
recipient of the international Stevens Award. They will each present
a lecture as part of the Stevens Lecture on Software Development
Methods.
The presentation will take place on Tuesday evening, 8 November 2005
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA at a gala reception and lecture at
the Carnegie Museum's Hall of Architecture and the Carnegie Library
Lecture Hall. The Stevens Lecture will be held in conjunction with
the first joint meeting of IEEE's 12th Working Conference on Reverse
Engineering (WCRE) and IFIP's 5th Working Conference on Software
Architecture (WICSA).
The Stevens Award was created to recognize outstanding contributions
to the literature or practice of methods for software and systems
development. The lecture presentations focus on lessons learned and
challenges, with an emphasis on advancing or analyzing the state of
software methods and their direction for the future.
This prestigious award lecture is named in memory of Wayne Stevens
(1944-1993), a highly-respected consultant, author, pioneer, and
advocate of the practical application of software methods and tools.
His 1974 IBM Systems Journal article "Structured Design" was the
first published on the topic and has been widely reprinted. Stevens
was the author of the books: Software Design: Concepts and Methods
(Prentice-Hall Intl, 1991) and Using Structured Design (Wiley,
1981). His last article "Data Flow Analysis and Design" appears in
the Encyclopedia of Software Engineering (Wiley, 1994). Stevens was
the chief architect of application development methodology for IBM's
consulting group.
Dr. Mary Shaw
Mary Shaw has been instrumental in the development and recognition
of software architecture as a discipline in software engineering.
Because of her work, and that of her colleague David Garlan, the
software industry has been able to understand and utilize
architectural approaches for the development of information systems
of increasing complexity.
Dr. Shaw has also been a critical industry nexus in the evolution
and growing maturity of software engineering education. development
of curricula to her perspectives and papers on education and
research directions, Mary Shaw's contributions to the teaching of
software engineering have had a profound influence throughout the
international software community.
Dr. Shaw is the A.J. Perlis Professor of Computer Science and co-
Director of the Sloan Software Industry Center at Carnegie Mellon
University in Pittsburgh. She was one of the founders of the
Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and served as its chief
scientist from 1984 to 1987. She has been an author or editor of
seven books and over 120 papers and technical reports, and is a
Fellow of IEEE and the American Association for the Advancement of
Science.
Jim Highsmith
Jim Highsmith has been a leader in the development and promotion of
agile methods in the software industry. His advocacy of adaptive
approaches, for both software development and project management,
has broadened the perspective of many practitioners and
organizations. With an emphasis on quick response, structuring for
innovation, and managing for change, Mr. Highsmith's message has
reinvigorated software methods in project teams and organizations
that had found traditional development processes and project
management ineffective.
A coauthor of the Agile Manifesto, Jim Highsmith was a founding
member of the Agile Alliance. He has over 25 years of experience as
a consultant with IT, product development, and software companies
worldwide. In his career, he has been a software developer and
technical manager with computer- aided software engineering,
computer hardware, banking, and energy companies. He is the author
of 3 books on agile approaches, co-editor of Addison- Wesley's Agile
Software Development book series, and a Fellow with Cutter
Consortium's Business Technology Council.
Reference Web Sites
Joint conference: http:reengineer.org/pittsburgh/
Mary Shaw: http:spoke.compose.cs.cmu.edu/shaweb/
Jim Highsmith: http:www.adaptivesd.com/
Stevens Award: http:reengineer.org/stevens/
========================================================================
eValid: News and Product Items
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
New features in the current eValid release include:
o New DOM Validation Support
There now is full support for validation of the value of any
object in the internal DOM of the page. See the writeup of the
new command at:
http:www.soft.com/eValid/Products/Documentation.5/Validation/validate.doc.obj.property.html
o Microsoft Vista (Beta) and IE 7
eValid has been confirmed operational on the new Microsoft
Windows/Vista (Beta) operating system, and also has been
confirmed operational on machines that run the new IE V7
browser.
o eValid Training Classes
There is limited seat availability at the two upcoming public
eValid training courses:
> 13-15 December 2005
> 21-23 February 2005
You can sign up for a 1-day, a 2-day, or a 3-day training. The
complete eValid course curriculum is given at:
http:www.soft.com/eValid/Training/curriculum.html
Please use this form to request registration information (be
sure to mention "eValid Training"):
http:www.soft.com/eValid/Information/info.request.html
Product Download Details
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Here is the URL for downloading eValid if you want to start [or re-
start] your evaluation:
http:www.soft.com/eValid/Products/Download.5/down.evalid.5.phtml?status=FORM
========================================================================
20th IEEE/ACM International Conference on
AUTOMATED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
(ASE 2005)
November 7-11, 2005
Long Beach, California, USA
http:www.ase-conference.org/
http:www.isr.uci.edu/ase2005/ConferenceRegistration.html
The IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software
Engineering brings together researchers and practitioners to share
ideas on the foundations, techniques, tools, and applications of
automated software engineering technology.
ASE 2005 features three keynotes, a technical program, four half-day
tutorials, four workshops, and a doctoral symposium.
========================================================================
SEW-30: 30th Annual IEEE/NASA Software Engineering Workshop
Loyola College Graduate Center, Columbia, MD, USA
24-28 April 2006
Part of Systems and Software Week
(http:www.systemsandsoftwareweek.org), co-located with:
EASe 2006, 3rd IEEE Workshop on Engineering Autonomic Systems;
http:www.ulster.ac.uk/ease/
DSSNS 2006, 2nd IEEE Workshop on Dependability and Reliability in
Sensor Networks and Systems; http:www.dssns.org
ZUM 2006, 12th International Conference of Z Users;
http:www.zuser.org/zum2006
Sponsored by NASA Software Engineering Laboratory
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
IEEE Computer Society, Technical Council on Software Engineering
Any inquiries should also be directed by email to
Michael.G.Hinchey@nasa.gov.
Keynote Speakers
Vic Basili (University of Maryland, College Park, USA)
Judith Bishop (University of Pretoria, South Africa)
Manfred Broy (Technical University of Munich, Germany)
Carlo Ghezzi (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
David Gries (Cornell University, USA)
Jim Woodcock (University of York, UK)
Background
The 30th Annual IEEE/NASA Software Engineering Workshop, the longest
continually running Software Engineering event in the world, will be
held at Loyola College Graduate Center, Columbia, Maryland, in
Metropolitan Washington DC, 24-28 April 2006, as part of the 2nd
Systems and Software Week.
Scope
The workshop aims to bring together NASA technical staff,
contractors, academics and industrial practitioners interested in
the advancement of software engineering principles and techniques.
The workshop provides a forum for reporting on past experiences for
describing new and emerging results and techniques, and for
exchanging ideas on best practice and future directions. Of
particular importance is relevance to NASA=92s mission and goals,
and how techniques might be applied, or adapted for use, at NASA, or
how NASA's techniques might be used or adapted for more generic use.
========================================================================
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