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A replicated quantitative analysis of fault distributions in complex software systems

Andersson, Carina LU and Runeson, Per LU orcid (2007) In IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 33(5). p.273-286
Abstract
To contribute to the body of empirical research on fault distributions during development of complex software systems, a replication of a study of Fenton and Ohlsson is conducted. The hypotheses from the original study are investigated using data taken from an environment that differs in terms of system size, project duration, and programming language. We have investigated four sets of hypotheses on data from three successive telecommunications projects: 1) the Pareto principle, that is, a small number of modules contain a majority of the faults ( in the replication, the Pareto principle is confirmed), 2) fault persistence between test phases ( a high fault incidence in function testing is shown to imply the same in system testing, as well... (More)
To contribute to the body of empirical research on fault distributions during development of complex software systems, a replication of a study of Fenton and Ohlsson is conducted. The hypotheses from the original study are investigated using data taken from an environment that differs in terms of system size, project duration, and programming language. We have investigated four sets of hypotheses on data from three successive telecommunications projects: 1) the Pareto principle, that is, a small number of modules contain a majority of the faults ( in the replication, the Pareto principle is confirmed), 2) fault persistence between test phases ( a high fault incidence in function testing is shown to imply the same in system testing, as well as prerelease versus postrelease fault incidence), 3) the relation between number of faults and lines of code ( the size relation from the original study could be neither confirmed nor disproved in the replication), and 4) fault density similarities across test phases and projects ( in the replication study, fault densities are confirmed to be similar across projects). Through this replication study, we have contributed to what is known on fault distributions, which seem to be stable across environments. (Less)
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author
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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
software fault distributions, empirical research, replication
in
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
volume
33
issue
5
pages
273 - 286
publisher
IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
external identifiers
  • wos:000245303400001
  • scopus:34247638920
ISSN
0098-5589
DOI
10.1109/TSE.2007.1005
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
cf748c4c-afcd-4612-b88e-fad06232b696 (old id 670097)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 16:21:33
date last changed
2022-03-14 23:51:30
@article{cf748c4c-afcd-4612-b88e-fad06232b696,
  abstract     = {{To contribute to the body of empirical research on fault distributions during development of complex software systems, a replication of a study of Fenton and Ohlsson is conducted. The hypotheses from the original study are investigated using data taken from an environment that differs in terms of system size, project duration, and programming language. We have investigated four sets of hypotheses on data from three successive telecommunications projects: 1) the Pareto principle, that is, a small number of modules contain a majority of the faults ( in the replication, the Pareto principle is confirmed), 2) fault persistence between test phases ( a high fault incidence in function testing is shown to imply the same in system testing, as well as prerelease versus postrelease fault incidence), 3) the relation between number of faults and lines of code ( the size relation from the original study could be neither confirmed nor disproved in the replication), and 4) fault density similarities across test phases and projects ( in the replication study, fault densities are confirmed to be similar across projects). Through this replication study, we have contributed to what is known on fault distributions, which seem to be stable across environments.}},
  author       = {{Andersson, Carina and Runeson, Per}},
  issn         = {{0098-5589}},
  keywords     = {{software fault distributions; empirical research; replication}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{5}},
  pages        = {{273--286}},
  publisher    = {{IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.}},
  series       = {{IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering}},
  title        = {{A replicated quantitative analysis of fault distributions in complex software systems}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2007.1005}},
  doi          = {{10.1109/TSE.2007.1005}},
  volume       = {{33}},
  year         = {{2007}},
}