A Comparison of Computer Support Systems for Software Inspection

Software inspection is universally accepted as an effective defect finding technique. Recent research in inspection has investigated the development of computer support, aimed at further improving its efficiency and effectiveness. This has resulted in the development of a number of prototype support tools. In 1996, the authors published a review of five inspection tools. Since then there has been an explosion in the number available, with a wide variety of innovative approaches and features. This paper reviews sixteen such tools. Despite the quantity of tools available, some fundamental weaknesses still exist. The authors have been working to develop a second generation tool which tackles these limitations, a brief description of this tool is also included in the paper.

[1]  John W. Gintell,et al.  Lessons learned by building and using Scrutiny, a collaborative software inspection system , 1995, Proceedings Seventh International Workshop on Computer-Aided Software Engineering.

[2]  Vahid Mashayekhi.  Distribution and asynchrony in concurrent software engineering , 1995 .

[3]  Laurence Brothers,et al.  ICICLE: groupware for code inspection , 1990, CSCW '90.

[4]  James Miller,et al.  A process for asynchronous software inspection , 1997, Proceedings Eighth IEEE International Workshop on Software Technology and Engineering Practice incorporating Computer Aided Software Engineering.

[5]  Philip Johnson,et al.  Exploring the effectiveness of formal technical review factors with csrs, a collaborative software review system , 1996 .

[6]  James Miller,et al.  Assisting Asynchronous Software Inspection by Auto-Collation of Defect Lists , 1999 .

[7]  James Miller,et al.  A software inspection process definition language and prototype support tool , 1997, Softw. Test. Verification Reliab..

[8]  Edward F. Weller,et al.  Lessons from three years of inspection data (software development) , 1993, IEEE Software.

[9]  John C. Knight,et al.  An improved inspection technique , 1993, CACM.

[10]  James Miller,et al.  Automating the software inspection process , 1996, Automated Software Engineering.

[11]  H. Jack Barnard,et al.  COMPAS: A development-process support system , 1990, AT&T Technical Journal.

[12]  Philip M. Johnson.  An instrumented approach to improving software quality through formal technical review , 1994, Proceedings of 16th International Conference on Software Engineering.

[13]  Philip M. Johnson.  THROUGH A COMPUTER SUPPORTED COLLABORATIVE REVIEW SYSTEM , 1995 .

[14]  Thomas Gilb,et al.  Software Inspection , 1994 .

[15]  Gérard Memmi,et al.  Scrutiny: A Collaborative Inspection and Review System , 1993, ESEC.

[16]  Ilkka Tervonen.  Consistent support for software designers and inspectors , 2004, Software Quality Journal.

[17]  Lawrence G. Votta,et al.  Does every inspection need a meeting? , 1993, SIGSOFT '93.

[18]  Adam A. Porter,et al.  Anywhere, Anytime Code Inspections: Using the Web to Remove Inspection Bottlenecks in Large-Scale Software Development , 1997, Proceedings of the (19th) International Conference on Software Engineering.

[19]  J. Miller,et al.  A Comparison of Tool-Based and Paper-Based Software Inspection , 1998, Empirical Software Engineering.

[20]  Adam E. Irgon,et al.  Knowledge-Based Code Inspection with ICICLE , 1992, IAAI.

[21]  Ilkka Tervonen,et al.  INSPECTING POSTSCRIPT DOCUMENTS IN AN OBJECT-ORIENTED ENVIRONMENT , 1997 .

[22]  Ilkka Tervonen,et al.  Support for Quality-Based Design and Inspection , 1996, IEEE Softw..

[23]  Vahid Mashayekhi,et al.  A Case Study of Distributed, Asynchronous Software Inspection , 1997, Proceedings of the (19th) International Conference on Software Engineering.

[24]  Laurence Brothers,et al.  ICICLE: Intelligent code inspection in a C language environment , 1990, Proceedings., Fourteenth Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference.

[25]  Vahid Mashayekhi,et al.  SuiteSound: A System for Distributed Collaborative Multimedia , 1993, IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng..

[26]  Wei-Tek Tsai,et al.  Distributed, collaborative software inspection , 1993, IEEE Software.

[27]  Vahid Mashayekhi,et al.  CAIS: collaborative asynchronous inspection of software , 1994, SIGSOFT '94.

[28]  Watts S. Humphrey,et al.  Managing the software process , 1989, The SEI series in software engineering.

[29]  John C. Knight,et al.  Phased inspections and their implementation , 1991, SOEN.

[30]  Shamsul Sahibuddin,et al.  Software quality through distributed code inspection , 1997 .

[31]  Lasse Harjumaa,et al.  Software inspection - a blend of discipline and flexibility , 1998 .

[32]  J. B. Iniesta.  A Tool And A Set Of Metrics To SupportTechnical Reviews , 1970 .

[33]  Lasse Harjumaa,et al.  A WWW-based tool for software inspection , 1998, Proceedings of the Thirty-First Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[34]  Glen W. Russell,et al.  Experience with inspection in ultralarge-scale development , 1991, IEEE Software.

[35]  Michael E. Fagan.  Design and Code Inspections to Reduce Errors in Program Development , 1976, IBM Syst. J..