f
Ash C. Caine
Abstract
Ash C. Caine
Abstract
The COnstructive COst MOdel, COCOMO, was developed to estimate the effort measured in staff-months to complete a software project. Given an estimate of the cost per staff-month, COCOMO can be used to estimate the cost of developing software. All business enterprises involved in developing software must know their costs to maintain their long-term viability. However, COCOMO has one significant drawback. It requires that the size of the project be measured in lines of code, but function points are a better metric in measuring project size compared to lines of code. In the event that the size of the project is measured in function points, COCOMO uses a function points to lines of code converter. We present a new model that uses function points as a direct input into the model. By using actual software project data, we show that the software project data can be analyzed on a programming language by programming language basis. We claim that our proposed model takes the programming language into account through precomputed constants. We conclude that our model is superior to the existing model because it eliminates the errors introduced by arbitrary function point indices and replaces them with constants that are scientifically and statistically verifiable.
OpenAlex reports 1 citations for this work. Citation counts describe recorded attention and do not establish research quality.
A contribution statement is not available in the OpenAlex record.
Method details are not available in the OpenAlex metadata.
Findings are not separately available in the OpenAlex metadata.
Limitations are not available in the OpenAlex metadata.
Application details are not available in the OpenAlex metadata.
The COnstructive COst MOdel, COCOMO, was developed to estimate the effort measured in staff-months to complete a software project. Given an estimate of the cost per staff-month, COCOMO can be used to estimate the cost of developing software. All business enterprises involved in developing software must know their costs to maintain their long-term viability. However, COCOMO has one significant drawback. It requires that the size of the project be measured in lines of code, but function points are a better metric in measuring project size compared to lines of code. In the event that the size of the project is measured in function points, COCOMO uses a function points to lines of code converter. We present a new model that uses function points as a direct input into the model. By using actual software project data, we show that the software project data can be analyzed on a programming language by programming language basis. We claim that our proposed model takes the programming language into account through precomputed constants. We conclude that our model is superior to the existing model because it eliminates the errors introduced by arbitrary function point indices and replaces them with constants that are scientifically and statistically verifiable.
Key concepts: COCOMO, Function point, Computer science, Use Case Points, Source lines of code, Software metric, Software, Software development