A framework for the classification and detection of design defects and software quality assurance

In current software development lifecyeles of heterogeneous environments, the pitfalls businesses have to face are that software defect tracking, measurements and quality assurance do not start early enough in the development process. In fact the cost of fixing a defect in a production environment is much higher than in the initial phases of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) which is particularly true for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Thus the aim of this study is to develop a new framework for defect tracking and detection and quality estimation for early stages particularly for the design stage of the SDLC. Part of the objectives of this work is to conceptualize, borrow and customize from known frameworks, such as object-oriented programming to build a solid framework using automated rule based intelligent mechanisms to detect and classify defects in software design of SOA. \n \nThe framework on design defects and software quality assurance (DESQA) will blend various design defect metrics and quality measurement approaches and will provide measurements for both defect and quality factors. Unlike existing frameworks, mechanisms are incorporated for the conversion of defect metrics into software quality measurements. The framework is evaluated using a research tool supported by sample used to complete the Design Defects Measuring Matrix, and data collection process. In addition, the evaluation using a case study aims to demonstrate the use of the framework on a number of designs and produces an overall picture regarding defects and quality. \n \nThe implementation part demonstrated how the framework can predict the quality level of the designed software. The results showed a good level of quality estimation can be achieved based on the number of design attributes, the number of quality attributes and the number of SOA Design Defects. Assessment shows that metrics provide guidelines to indicate the progress that a software system has made and the quality of design. Using these guidelines, we can develop more usable and maintainable software systems to fulfil the demand of efficient systems for software applications. \n \nAnother valuable result coming from this study is that developers are trying to keep backwards compatibility when they introduce new functionality. Sometimes, in the same newly-introduced elements developers perform necessary breaking changes in future versions. In that way they give time to their clients to adapt their systems. This is a very valuable practice for the developers because they have more time to assess the quality of their software before releasing it. Other improvements in this research include investigation of other design attributes and SOA Design Defects which can be computed in extending the tests we performed.