Abstract
Metrics offer a practical approach to evaluate properties of domain-specific models. However, it is costly to develop and maintain measurement software for each domain-specific modeling language. In this paper, we present a model-driven and generative approach to measuring models. The approach is completely domain-independent and operationalized through a prototype that synthesizes a measurement infrastructure for a domain-specific modeling language. This model-driven measurement approach is model-driven from two viewpoints: (1) it measures models of a domain-specific modeling language; (2) it uses models as unique and consistent metric specifications, with respect to a metric specification metamodel which captures all the necessary concepts for model-driven specifications of metrics. The benefit from applying the approach is evaluated by four case studies. They indicate that this approach significantly eases the measurement activities of model-driven development processes.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baroni, A., Braz, S., Abreu, F.L.: Using OCL to formalize object-oriented design metrics definitions. In: ECOOP’02 Workshop on Quantitative Approaches in OO Software Engineering (2002)
Basili Victor R., Briand Lionel C., Melo Walcélio L.: A validation of object-oriented design metrics as quality indicators. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 22(10), 751–761 (1996)
Basili, V.R., Caldiera, G., Rombach, H.D.: The goal question metric approach. In: Encyclopedia of Software Engineering. Wiley, New York (1994)
Baumert, J., McWhinney, M.: Software measures and the capability maturity model. Technical report, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (1992)
Berenbach, B., Borotto, G.: Metrics for model driven requirements development. In: Proceeding of the 28th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE ’06), pp. 445–451. ACM Press, New York (2006)
Budinsky F., Steinberg D., Merks E., Ellersick R., Grose T.J.: Eclipse Modeling Framework. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2004)
Chidamber, S.R., Kemerer, C.F.: Towards a metrics suite for object-oriented design. In: Proceedings of OOPSLA’91, pp. 197–211 (1991)
Coleman D., Ash D., Lowther B., Oman P.: Using metrics to evaluate software system maintainability. IEEE Comput. 27(8), 44–49 (1994)
Costello R.J., Liu D.-B.: Metrics for requirements engineering. J. Syst. Softw. 29(1), 39–63 (1995)
Davis, A., Overmyer, S., Jordan, K., Caruso, J., Dandashi, F., Dinh, A., Kincaid, G., Ledeboer, G., Reynolds, P., Sitaram, P., Ta, A., Theofanos, M.: Identifying and measuring quality in a software requirements specification. In: Proceedings of the First International Software Metrics Symposium (1993)
de Lara, J., Vangheluwe, H.: Atom3: a tool for multi- formalism and meta-modelling. In: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering (FASE’02), pp. 174–188. Springer, Berlin (2002)
Douglass, B.P.: Computing model complexity. White paper, I-Logix (2004)
El Wakil, M., El Bastawissi, A., Boshra, M., Fahmy, A.: A novel approach to formalize and collect object-oriented design-metrics. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Empirical Assessment in Software Engineering (2005)
Feiler, P.H., Gluch, D.P., Hudak, J.J.: The architecture analysis and design language (aadl): an introduction. Technical report, CMU/SEI (2006)
Fenton N.E.: Software Metrics: A Rigorous Approach. Chapman & Hall, London (1991)
Garcìa F., Bertoa Manuel F., Calero C., Vallecillo A., Ruiz F., Piattini M., Genero M.: Towards a consistent terminology for software measurement. Inf. Softw. Technol. 48(8), 631–644 (2006)
García F., Ruiz F., Calero C., Bertoa Manuel F., Vallecillo A., Mora B., Piattini M.: Effective use of ontologies in software measurement. Knowl. Eng. Rev. 24, 23–40 (2009)
Garcia F., Serrano M., Cruz-Lemus J., Ruiz F., Piattini M.: Managing software process measurement: a metamodel-based approach. Inf. Sci. 177(12), 2570–2586 (2007)
Guerra E., de Lara J., Díaz P.: Visual specification of measurements and redesigns for domain specific visual languages. J. Vis. Lang. Comput. 19, 1–27 (2008)
Hammer, T., Rosenberg, L., Huffman, L., Hyatt, L.: Requirements metrics—value added. In: Proceedings of the 3rd IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering (RE’97), p. 141.1. IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC (1997)
Harmer, T.J., Wilkie, F.G.: An extensible metrics extraction environment for object-oriented programming languages. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Maintenance (2002)
Henderson-Sellers B.: Object-Oriented Metrics, measures of complexity. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1996)
Henderson-Sellers, B., Zowghi, D., Klemola, T., Parasuram, S.: Sizing use cases: how to create a standard metrical approach. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Object- Oriented Information Systems (OOIS ’02), pp. 409–421. Springer, Berlin (2002)
Kolde, C.: Basic metrics for requirements management. White paper, Borland (2004)
Lédeczi Á., Bakay Á., Maroti M., Vőlgyesi P., Nordstrom G., Sprinkle J., Karsai G.: Composing domain-specific design environments. IEEE Comput. 34, 44–51 (2001)
Loconsole, A.: Measuring the requirements management key process area. In: Proceedings of the 12th European Software Control and Metrics Conference (ESCOM’2001) (2001)
Marchesi, M.: OOA metrics for the Unified Modeling Language. In: Proceedings of the 2nd Euromicro Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering (CSMR’98), p. 67. IEEE Computer Society (1998)
Marinescu, C., Marinescu, R., Gîrba, T.: Towards a simplified implementation of object-oriented design metrics. In: IEEE METRICS p. 11 (2005)
McQuillan, J., Power, J.: A definition of the chidamber and kemerer metrics suite for uml. Technical report, National University of Ireland (2006)
McQuillan, J.A., Power, J.F.: Experiences of using the dagstuhl middle metamodel for defining software metrics. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Principles and Practices of Programming in Java (2006)
Mens T., Lanza M.: A graph-based metamodel for object-oriented software metrics. Electron. Notes Theor. Comput. Sci. 72, 57–68 (2002)
Misic, V.B., Moser, S.: From formal metamodels to metrics: an object-oriented approach. In: Proceedings of the Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems Conference (TOOLS’97), pp. 330 (1997)
Monperrus, M.: La mesure des modéles par les modèles: une approche générative. Ph.D. thesis, Université de Rennes (2008)
Monperrus, M., Champeau, J., Hoeltzener, B.: Counts count. In: Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Model Size Metrics (MSM’07) co-located with MoDELS’2007 (2007)
Monperrus, M., Jaozafy, F., Marchalot, G., Champeau, J., Hoeltzener, B., Jézéquel, J.-M.: Model-driven simulation of a maritime surveillance system. In: Proceedings of the 4th European Conference on Model Driven Architecture Foundations and Applications (ECMDA’2008) (2008)
Monperrus, M., Jézéquel, J.-M., Champeau, J., Hoeltzener, B.: Measuring models. In: Jörg, R., Christian, B. (eds.) Model-Driven Software Development: Integrating Quality Assurance. IDEA Group (2008)
Monperrus, M., Long, B., Champeau, J., Hoeltzener, B., Marchalot, G., Jézéquel, J.-M.: Model-driven architecture of a maritime surveillance system simulator. Syst. Eng. 13, (2010)
Mora, B., Garcia, F., Ruiz, F., Piattini, M., Boronat, A., Gómez, A., Carsí, J.Á., Ramos, I.: Software measurement by using qvt transformations in an mda context. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS’2008) (2008)
Mora, B., Piattini, M., Ruiz, F., Garcia, F.: Smml: software measurement modeling language. In: Proceedings of the 8th Workshop on Domain-Specific Modeling (DSM’2008) (2008)
Nagappan, N., Ball, T., Zeller, A.: Mining metrics to predict component failures. In: Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 452–461. ACM, New York (2006)
OMG: MOF 2.0 specification. Technical report, Object Management Group (2004)
OMG: Rfp for a software metrics meta-model (adtmf/2006-09-03). Technical report, OMG (2006)
Paulk, M.C., Weber, C.V., Garcia, S.M., Chrissis, M.B., Bush, M.: Key practices of the capability maturity model. Technical report, Software Engineering Institute (1993)
Pawlak, R., Noguera, C., Petitprez, N.: Spoon: program analysis and transformation in java. Technical Report 5901, INRIA (2006)
Reissing, R.: Towards a model for object-oriented design measurement. In: ECOOP’01 Workshop QAOOSE (2001)
Reynoso, L., Genero, M., Cruz-Lemuz J., Piattini, M.: OCL 2: using OCL in the formal definition of OCL expression measures. In: Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Quality in Modeling (QIM’2006) (2006)
SAE: AADL Standard. Technical report, Society of Automotive Engineers (2006)
Schmidt D.C.: Model-driven engineering. IEEE Comput. 39(2), 25–31 (2006)
Singh Y., Sabharwal S., Sood M.: A systematic approach to measure the problem complexity of software requirement specifications of an information system. Inf. Manage. Sci. 15, 69–90 (2004)
Staron M., Meding W., Nilsson C.: A framework for developing measurement systems and its industrial evaluation. Inf. Softw. Technol. 51, 721–737 (2009)
Sztipanovits, J.: Advances in model-integrated computing. In: Proceedings of the 18th IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (IMTC’2001), vol. 3, pp. 1660–1664 (2001)
Tang, M.-H., Chen, M.-H.: Measuring OO design metrics from UML. In: Proceedings of MODELS/UML’2002. UML 2002 (2002)
Vépa, E., Bézivin, J., Brunelière, H., Jouault, F.: Measuring model repositories. In: Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Model Size Metrics (MSM’06) co-located with MoDELS’2006 (2006)
Zave P.: Classification of research efforts in requirements engineering. ACM Comput. Surv. 29(4), 315–321 (1997)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Communicated by Prof. Antonio Vallecillo.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Monperrus, M., Jézéquel, JM., Baudry, B. et al. Model-driven generative development of measurement software. Softw Syst Model 10, 537–552 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-010-0165-9
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-010-0165-9