Measuring Software Reuse: Principles, Practices, And Economic Models

Measuring Software Reuse: Principles, Practices, and Economic Models

With the techniques in this book, you will have the tools you need to design afar more effective reuse program, prove its bottom-line profitability, and promote software reuse within your organization. Written by a leading software reuse practitioner, Measuring Software Reuse brings together all of the latest concepts, tools, and methods for software reuse metrics, presenting concrete quantitative techniques for accurately measuring the level of reuse in a software project and objectively evaluating its financial benefits.ReviewMeasuring Software Reuse provides the tools needed to design more effective reuse programs, improve bottom-line profitability, and promote software reuse within organizations. Measuring Software Reuse brings together all of the latest concrete, tools, and methods for software reuse metrics, concrete quantitative techniques for accurately measuring the level of reuse in a software project, and the objective evaluation of resultant financial benefits. Measuring Software Reuse presents experience-tested techniques for implementing a metrics program by incorporating a recommended reuse metric "starter set". It also includes an extensive discussion on the metrics for reuse libraries and examines the issue of measuring reuse throughout the software life cycle. -- Midwest Book ReviewFrom the Inside FlapThis book explains the most important issue in reuse measurement-defining what to count as reuse, how to count it, and why. Without a uniform understanding of what to count, all reports of reuse levels and benefits become automatically suspect. By addressing this issue, this book puts reuse measurement into a reliable and consistent context. Furthermore, it emphasizes a fundamental truth in software reuse:Business decisions drive reuse!Metrics make business decisions possible by quantifying and justifying the investments necessary to make reuse happen. Metrics put into numbers the significant contribution that reuse can make to an organization's software development competitive advantage and survival. Once an organization collects the data and shows the return on investment, the business decision will support the most cost-effective way of building software!This book aims to give the reader the background necessary to implement and understand reuse metrics. Part of this understanding includes an introduction to major metric models. However, this book adds value to the original presentations of each model by explaining each model within a common framework and by helping to explain when to apply a particular model.In Chapter 1, "Motivating Software Reuse through Metrics," we introduce the reader to reuse and to the importance of metrics, both in a reuse program and in evaluating experience reports published by others. Chapter 2, "A Reuse Metrics Overview," serves as an introduction to the issues surrounding reuse metrics: the types of metrics, economic models, return-on-investment analysis, and cost-benefit analysis. Chapter 3, "The Relative Costs of Developing with and for Reuse," presents quantitative data on the relative benefits and costs of reuse. This data, pulled from numerous sources and experiences, establishes the foundation for many of the economic models presented in this book.Chapter 4, "Defining Reuse from a Metrics Point of View," contains perhaps the most important material in the field of reuse metrics; it explores the issue of what to count as reuse. This chapter reveals how the values reported in reuse metrics can range from realistic representations of reuse activity to the extremely misleading. Chapter 5, "Measuring Reuse and Reuse Benefits," pulls all the models together by summarizing the models, discussing the strengths of each, and recommending when to apply each one.Chapter 6, "Implementing a Metrics Program," gives a recommended set of metrics for a reuse program. The chapter gives examples of how to use the metrics, as well as an extensive case study o