SQALE Model of Software Quality Assessment

A software quality assessment based on life cycle expectation is known as a SQALE quality model. In other words, it is referred as a newer tool and language method which is independent for quality assessment. Software source code is one of the different types of artifacts that uses SQALE quality model. It does have values indicating the level of quality that tells about the amount of resources and time needed to different issues. Since the SQALE quality model is based on the principle of remediation costs, they are later compared to the total costs that determine the correct amount of financial resources invested as well as the amount of time spent on a certain given project. To get the total cost, we multiply the total amount of hours needed in developing one thousand lines of code by the size of the project.

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Model Structure

In this kind of a model structure, three level of the hierarchy is defined. The upper level in the hierarchy represent the SQALE characteristics which refer to the projection of ISO 9126 on the chronology of a specific kind of a software application lifecycle. In software cycle, each level has to conform to a specific phase. The top level in the hierarchy refers to the sublevel of the characteristics. The level of characteristics is much lower than the level of abstraction in this sub-characteristics. The source code requirements are rules that are connected with the lowest model sub-characteristics. In addition, these rules are measurably related aspects of the sources code. Both the remediation costs and high-level quality indicators are determined by the number of times rules are violated.

Rules versus Metrics

For us to fully understand the SQALE quality model, there is need to comprehend the relationship existing between metrics and rules since they are not equal. Any software source code is referred to as a metric used to measure a given aspect of a code. On the other hand, the rules not only determines whether measurements results are good or bad but also they measure the aspect of a source code. For rules to determine whether the results are bad they have not only to use a parameter that defines what is good or bad but also metrics are used too. When the results are bad, such a case is referred to as rule violation.

Aggregation of Metrics

The addition is the only way to find aggregate in SQALE. When all the remediation costs of violations in the associated rules are added the results are SQALE remediation costs. SQALE remediation costs are also known as the index. We get the index' of characteristics by adding up all the indices of the associated sub-characteristics. To get the consolidated index, all levels below and the specific level indices are added. Furthermore, when we sum all the characteristics index, we end up with the overall SQALE quality index.

Calculating Ratings

To get the set of density indices we divide all indices by the size of the artifact. Indices are the amount of man-hours needed to repair all issues while the amount of man-hours needed to come up with an artifact indicates the size of the artifact. To get the SQALE ratings, we map a continuous range of density indices against a discrete number of ratings. The good or bad information belongs to the user of the model which is used to define a Kiviat. Making use of information from both figure 13 and 14 as examples that use SQALE model and sonar tools, will enable us to understand the concept better. We get the indices from the ratings, which are the discrete values on a defined scale.