Survey on CBSE metrics

[Bayu Hendradjaya]

Dear Sir/Madam,
(I am sorry for those who received this email more than one)

I am currently doing a research on the topic of "A New Metrics Oracle
for Component Based Software Engineering (CBSE)". I am currently at
the stage of gathering a number of CBSE related metrics from
professionals in the field and hence this communication to you.

The survey questionnaire below covers a number of issues in relation
to component usage, metrics and their confidence. That should help in
contributing the proposed metrics.

I understand that you have a busy schedule, and I would profoundly
appreciate if you could spare your time and effort by providing the
information as guided by the questions in this survey. Please note
that this survey would take approximately only 30 minutes to complete.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this survey, feel
free to contact me by e-mail. Upon completion of the survey and
analysis, I shall endeavor to keep you posted, if you wish -
please let me know.

I take this opportunity to thank you for your time and effort.

PS:
* If you prefer to use DOC, RTF or TXT format you can download it
from here, respectively (they are scanned and virus free):
http://www.cs.newcastle.edu.au/~bayu/CBSE-survey.doc
http://www.cs.newcastle.edu.au/~bayu/CBSE-survey.rtf
http://www.cs.newcastle.edu.au/~bayu/CBSE-survey.txt
* If you prefer to answer it through the web just go to
http://www.geocities.com/bhendradjaya/survey.html
* or just simply reply this email to my email address
along with your answers below

Yours sincerely,
Bayu Hendradjaya
Phd Student
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Newcastle
NSW 2308, Australia
Tel.: +61 2 4921 7242
Email: bayu@cs.newcastle.edu.au

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"A SURVEY ON COMPONENT BASED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING METRICS"

N.B.:
If you are not involved with CBSE, please do not proceed with this survey.
If you don't use the metrics, please just skip those metrics related questions.

A. GENERAL ISSUES QUESTIONS
---------------------------
A.1 Please describe your development and application environment and
platform briefly?

A.2 When you use CASE tool to develop the software
a) Specify your CASE tool

b) Describe how it helps you in developing the Component Based software.

c) What are the unresolved problems with such tools?

A.3 How well is your system documented?

A.4 Do you find reusing components technically difficult?
State/describe the difficulties involved.

A.5 How many times did you reuse a component before you become
confident with its "blind re-use"?

A.6 Do you use any visualization mechanism to represent your software
system?

B. COMPONENT ISSUES QUESTIONS
-----------------------------
B.1 Do you find some components to be more complex than others? If
yes, how do you define complexity?

B.2 Do you find some components to be more critical than others? If
yes, how do you define criticality?

B.3 Do you find the specification document for components are clear
enough to be used in software development? Please explain.


B.4 Are the interfaces between components well-defined? What would be
your interpretation of the term "well-defined"?

B.5 How do you make a judgment on the security aspects of third party
components?

B.6 What procedures do you adopt in order to impart trustworthiness to
the components that you have developed?

B.7 Describe/state any metrics that you use to "measure" various
issues in (B.5) and (B.6) above.

C. COMPONENT INTEGRATION ISSUES QUESTIONS
-----------------------------------------

C.1 During integration, do you use your own components, third party
components or both? Please describe the reasons for your choice.


C.2 How are the components specified (e.g., using CIDL/MIDL, etc) in
your environment?

C.3 How are the dynamic behaviors of components captured? (e.g., using
OCL?)

C.4 How many components on average do you integrate into your system
per day/week?

C.5 What depth of component hierarchy do you tolerate before you
declare that the system is "very complex"?

C.6 How many people on average are involved in integrating components?
What is the average system integration time (in days)?


C.7 What are the key issues do you encounter during integration?


D. QUESTIONS ON DIFFICULTIES IN COMPONENT INTEGRATION
-----------------------------------------------------
D.1 What problems did you experience during component integration?
Please list.


D.2 List/describe the issues/problems that you encounter when
integrating third-party components?


D.3 What problems do you encounter when integrating an updated
versions of third-party components?


D.4 How do you manage change in requirements during integration of
components?

E. QUESTIONS ON RISKS IN COMPONENT INTEGRATION
----------------------------------------------
E.1 What risks did you face during component integration? Please
explain.

E.2 How did you identify and ameliorate the risks during component
integration?


F. METRICS ISSUES RELATED QUESTIONS
-----------------------------------
F.1 For your CBSE-based system development
a) Explain the nature of metrics used.

b) Do you use any special software metrics generator tool? If yes,
please specify the name

c) How do you measure the development of your software using these
metrics?

d) How do you find the usefulness and effectiveness of these metrics?



e) Please specify the limitations of the metrics used, if any.


F.2 Please explain the degree of confidence in chosen metrics in
predicting the system behavior.

F.3 Do you use special metrics for component integration? If yes,
please describe the metrics, and if not, do you think to need one?


------------ end of survey ------------------------------------------

Please feel free to attach any other information based on your
experience that will help me with my PhD program.

Thank you very much for your time and effort.
Please email to: bayu@cs.newcastle.edu.au