Authors:
A. Chamundeswari
and
Chitra Babu
Affiliation:
SSN College of Engineering, India
Keyword(s):
Object-Oriented Software, Use Case Model, Function Point, Object Model.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Embedded Communications Systems
;
Software Architectures
;
Telecommunications
Abstract:
Precise size estimation earlier in the software development life cycle has always been a challenge for the software industry. In the context of object oriented software, Use Case Model (UCM) is widely used to capture the functionality addressed in the software. Existing size estimation techniques such as use case points and use case size points do not adhere to any standard. Consequently, lots of variations are possible, leading to inaccurate size estimation. On the other hand, Function Point Analysis (FPA) has been standardized. However, the current estimation approaches based on FPA employ object modeling that happens later in the software development life cycle rather than the UCM. In order to gain the advantages of FPA as well as UCM, this paper proposes a new approach for size estimation of object oriented software. This approach is based on the UCM by adapting it to FPA. Mapping rules are proposed for proper identification and classification of various components from UCM to FP
A. Estimation results obtained using the proposed approach are compared with those using finer granular level object model which adapts FPA at design phase. The close agreement between these two results indicates that the proposed approach is suitable for accurate software size estimation earlier in the software development life cycle.
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