Object Oriented Defect Management of Software

The need for defect detection in software applications, small to large, has become one the primary concerns of any organization. The lower the number of defects, as it is perceived, the higher the quality of the software. H. Younessi in his book, OO Defect Management of Software, answers some of the very questions asked by architects and tech leads regarding defect detection, and defect prevention in software. The process proposed works with all the popular software engineering processes mainly, the RUP and is "compatible" with UML. This book is a must read. It "does" software engineering and project management from a brand new perspective: How create a software application with as little defect as possible? How can a group or an organization tailor their process so that the number defects injected is minimized, and the number of defects found is maximized?Defect detection and management is a topic that you don't hear too much about or consider during a software development process. Once the code has been written, and then you start figuring out what went wrong, what was done incorrectly, and what needs to be redone. Younessi in his book outlines extensions to popular development processes, and puts defects in center stage (where it should be) and almost "forces" the developers, architects, tech leads, etc to think about the quality of the software that they are creating. This extension is added to every stage of the process, from inception all the way thru testing. Assuring for example that your tests are effective and you are not injecting more defects into the application while you are testing. The author thru out the book is showing how one can balance all the elements of software engineering: People, Methodology and Technology with a hint of defect management with which the application would be of a higher quality. The author sets the stage for the book in the first two chapters. From chapter 3 to the end of the book, the author delves into the phases of the software engineering process (inception, requirements, design, development, test and deployment), and explains how each of these stages can be tailored with defect detection and management in mind. Let me remind you that in the normal software engineering processes or texts, defect detection or defect prevention is not really considered. All the processes talk about quality software, but not much time is spent on what that really means. Normally, you need to figure out how you can put together the techniques you learned about creating quality software and the techniques you learned about a development process. This book leaves that guessing part out, and actually tells you what YOU need to do at EVERY stage of a software development process to ensure that 1) defects are detected as early as possible and 2) defects are not injected in to the process as much as possible. This entire process is not pure science by any means. There is no equation for it or anything, but th

"Object-Oriented Defect Management of Software" by Houman Younessi, is a remarkable and excellent software engineering reference to have. We finally have a book that shoots directly to the heart of the matter, connecting the process to the yielding of QUALITY software products by way of managing defects throughout every stage.It is difficult to make sure that every SE step outputs quality artifacts for input into the subsequent phase. When defects are not caught after each stage of the SE process, their effects can become intractable therefore costing a lot of money as time increases. Houman addresses these concerns by presenting techniques that will prevent, identify and correct requirements, design, implementation, testing and maintenance defects that will lead to developing a quality software product. For instance, Houman describes using formal descriptive and prescriptive inspection techniques for identifying anomalies of output design artifacts such as a trap state in a UML state-chart diagram. The book is extremely organized with intuitive examples and contains a wealth of tools that any software development organization will greatly benefit from. At the epitome of this tool set is a comprehensive software inspection process that can be utilized for conducting formal reviews. I would highly recommend this book for any software engineer and software development organization.A truly magnificent piece of work that has "level 5" written all over it. Thank you Houman!Willard ThompsonSoftware Engineer

This is a niche book that has a narrow, but important, focus. The approach the author takes is to apply mature defect management techniques that were proven in procedural development environments to object-oriented development. The context of defect management in this book is defect density (defining the development life cycle phase in which the defect was injected) and inspection techniques to promote early discovery. Neither of these are new, but are difficult to employ in OO development. That is where this book becomes valuable, because it recognizes that systems developed using OO techniques are viewed and modeled differently. Instead of the relatively flat dimensions of entity-relationship and data flow, OO uses encapsulation, and structural, transformational, and causal-sequential. The changes in modeling and views require changes in process and attitude. The techniques that are given reflect the necessary changes in defect density management and inspection techniques that are required. Aside from the unique subject matter (there are few books devoted to defect management in any development environment), this book is invaluable to developers, requirements analysts, SQA and test professionals because it covers each of these domains in great detail. Chapters 3 and 4 are focused on requirements defects and contain excellent advice for both preventing defects at this critical phase, as well as how to detect and manage ones that are introduced. Chapters 5 and 6 address the same issues in the design phase, and 7 covers the build phase. The chapters that cover the test phase are particularly good because they provide techniques that are specific to OO testing. Many books attempt to force-fit traditional testing techniques into OO environments and it plain doesn't work. The author did an excellent job of describing the approaches and knowledge needed to be an effective tester in OO development projects.Appendix C is also valuable because it provides 17 scripts for inspections and walkthroughs.This book fully supports the Rational Unified Process, as well as OPEN and other OO development approaches. At a higher level, this book is also applicable to procedural development from a defect management point of view because much of the general material, especially the parts related to software quality attributes and defect density, applies to any development environment.