Relationships Between Selected Software Measures and Latent Bug-Density: Guidelines for Improving Quality

It is cost-effective for software practitioners to monitor and control the quality of software from the early phases of development. To address this issue, a study aimed at investigating relationships between fifteen predictive design/code measures and bug-density was undertaken. Thirty projects having varied characteristics were chosen. An experimental analysis was performed. It was discovered that most of the metrics considered in the study have strong relationship with bug-density. On the other hand, few metrics do not demonstrate any remarkable relationship. The study provides invaluable lessons that should facilitate software engineers to administer quality from the early phases of development. Some of the major contributions of the work are: investigation of a large number of software projects, consideration of a large number of predictive software measures in one study, comparison of the results of these measures on a common platform, and lessons learned for controlling quality from early stages of software development.