-
8/7/2019 Software Quality Problem
1/3
SOFTWARE QUALITY PROBLEM
The quality of the software has always played a vital role in
the success of the software
product. People do accept that software which has good quality.
The good quality of software
reflects in the success of business.
Modern-day software development is notoriously challenging.
Programs have become highly
complex. Customer expectations have never been higher. Meeting
quality standards is
increasingly difficult.
The major software quality problem is the intrusion of defects/
bugs/ issues in the software
while developing it. Bugs are everywhere in today's software and
because of the huge
economic damage they are actively studied by research.
A software defect is non conformity with the requirements
specifications or anything not
desired by the client, anything below standards as per defined
during the project
documentation.
In program analysis, researchers develop defect detection tools
that identify anomalies in
programs and report them as possible defects. Defect
localization takes a given failure and
identifies the cause of the defect. In empirical software
engineering, researchers identify
factors that correlate with defects and build prediction models
to effectively allocate
resources for quality assurance to the parts of the software
that need it most. Most of this
research is conducted on medium-sized open-source projects and
rarely used in industry. In
the long-term human and social issues will gain importance when
analyzing defects,
however, there is only little research in this area so far.
A Software Bug is an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in
a computer program that
prevents it from behaving as intended (e.g., producing an
incorrect result). Most bugs arise
from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program's
source code or its design, and
a few are caused by compilers producing incorrect code.
Software defects have created a serious damages and even
physical harm. The software
defects in finance or word applications make user galling and
increases the word done by the
user and the cost is also increased, but nobody is injured or
killed. When software-intensive
-
8/7/2019 Software Quality Problem
2/3
systems are considered like airplanes, automobiles, control air
traffic, run factories, or operate
power plants, defects can be dangerous. People have been killed
by defective software.
Although software defects exist, software is ideally suited for
critical applications, they do
not deteriorate like hardware. Software is reliable, versatile
and economical.
However, practices adopted worldwide today are not cohesive and
certainly not generic
enough for reuse in other projects. As the software in todays
systems grows larger, it has
more defects, and these defects adversely affect the safety,
security, and reliability of the
systems. The problem lies in ability to detect measure, predict
and control the occurrences of
defects as early as possible in the SDLC. Further, the ability
to incorporate such practices in
all kinds of software projects that employ different kinds of
implementation models are in
itself a challenge.
IMPACT OF DEFECTS & BUGS
We all have for sure heard about big and small bugs in common
software programs like
windows etc. and the consequences of them. According to a newly
released study
commissioned by the Department of Commerce's National Institute
of Standards and
Technology (NIST), Software Bugs cost US Economy an estimated
$59.5 billion annually
y In 1982 a Lockheed F-117 aircraft was crashed because of a
software bug. Thesoftware interchanged the "yaw rudder" with "pitch
elevator".
y Because of a code number mix-up, in September 1994, three
parking offenders inBayreuth, Germany got charged with "preparation
of a war".
y In 1985 in a assembly hall of General Motors all the black
cars were assembledwithout the windscreen. Why? Because a Robot
couldn't recognize the "Black" color.
y The "shutdown molody" of the Siemens S65 mobile was so laud
when the battery wasfaint, some even got hearing damages.
y In1996 a Prototype of the Ariane 5 rocket of the european
space agency wasdestroyed because they used the software from
Ariane 4 rocket.
y 1985 - 1986 few patients were killed in a hospital in USA
because the medicine dosewas calculated wrongly.
y In 1962 NASA lost their 80 Million Dollar "Mariner 1" because
of a missing"hyphen" in the program code.
-
8/7/2019 Software Quality Problem
3/3
y Because of a "prefix" error in a F-16 Attack Aircraft, it
turns upside down every timeit flew over the equator.
POSSIBLE CAUSES OF DEFECTS
There can be the following reasons for having defects in a
software application-
y A human being can make an error (mistake), which produces a
defect (fault, bug) inthe code, in software or a system, or in a
document.
y If a defect in code is executed, the system will fail to do
what it should do (or dosomething it shouldn't), causing a failure.
Defects in software, systems or documents
may result in failures, but not all defects do so.
y Defects can also be occur because of the inappropriate time
assigned to the project sodue the time pressure, a developer may
miss some things to implement resulting
defects.
y Other important reason may be complex code, complexity of
infrastructure, changedtechnologies, and/or many system
interactions.
y Due to the distributed environment like server client systems
which are very complexand very difficult to handle might is one of
the reasons to have defects.
y Failures can be caused by environmental conditions as
well.
