Measuring The Size of the Software – Size Oriented Metrics in Software Engineering

Question: Which of the following is not used in measuring the size of the software

How to measure the software size?

There are many techniques to measure the software size.

The software project manager uses the size measuring techniques to save the time and effort.

Some of these techniques are mentioned below;

1. Lines of Code
2. Number of entities in ER diagram
3. Total number of processes in detailed data flow diagram
4. Function points

 

1. Measuring the size of the software with the Number of entities in ER diagram

If we see the entity-relationship model,  then we can guess that how many entities are involved in our system, and how many relationships are involved in these entities. In short, we can say that all this process helps us to measure the size of a software. If there are more entities in our system and there are more complex relationships,  then it means that it can lead to a greater software size.

Advantages of Measuring the software size with the number of entities

• we can estimate the size of software during the initial stages of software planning
• The number of entities is independent of programming tools and technologies used in our software.

Disadvantages of  Measuring the software size with the number of entities

• All entities do not have equal size.  it’s possible that some entities have a big size and some entities contribute a less size

2. Measuring the size of the software with Lines of Code (LOC):

If we want to measure the size of software,  then we can simply measure the line of code.

The units of LOC are:

• KLOC(Thousand lines of code)
• KDSI (Thousands of delivered source instructions)
• NLOC(Non-comment lines of code)

Advantages Of measuring the size of software with lines of code

• It’s very simple to count the lines of code.  most of the tools provided the total number of lines.
• It’s very easy to measure the size of a software developer
• This measuring technique is universally acceptable and it’s helpful in many software engineering models like COCOMO.
• Disadvantages Of measuring the size of software with lines of code

3. Measuring the software size with Function Point Analysis:

Following steps are involved in function point analysis;

• Count the number of functions of each proposed type.
• Compute the Unadjusted Function Points
• Find Total Degree of Influence.
• Compute Value Adjustment Factor
• Find the Function Point Count

4. Measuring the software size with the total number of processes in the data flow diagram

A functional view of software can be represented with the data flow diagram. As we know that we represent database tables and processes in the data flow diagram,  so we can measure the software size with the help of measuring the processes involved in the data flow diagram.

Advantage of Measuring the software size with the total number of processes in the data flow diagram

• Measuring the processes in the data flow diagram is independent of programming languages.
• We can decompose the complex processes into simpler processes.