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This module emphasizes software quality engineering as an integral facet of development, from requirements through delivery and maintenance. We will understand how to choose appropriate quality goals and select, plan, and execute quality assurance activities throughout development and evolution to predictably meet quality and schedule goals. We introduce also how quality assurance can be incorporated into process improvement feedback loops that amplify the ability of an organization to cost-effectively prevent and detect faults.

Introduction

What is software quality, and why is it so important that it is pervasive in the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge? Within an information system, software is a tool, and tools have to be selected for quality and for appropriateness. That is the role of equirements. But software is more than a tool. It dictates the performance of the system, and it is therefore important to the system quality.

The notion of “quality” is not as simple as it may seem. For any engineered product, there are many desired qualities relevant to a particular project, to be discussed and determined at the time that the product requirements are determined. Qualities may be present or absent, or may be matters of degree, with tradeoffs among them, with practicality and cost as major considerations. The software engineer has a responsibility to elicit the system’s quality requirements that may not be explicit at the outset and to discuss their importance and the difficulty of attaining them. All processes associated with software quality (e.g. building, checking, improving quality) will be designed with these in mind

and carry costs based on the design. Thus, it is important to have in mind some of the possible attributes of quality.

Various researchers have produced models (usually taxonomic) of software quality characteristics or attributes that can be useful for discussing, planning, and rating the quality of software products. The models often include metrics to “measure” the degree of each quality attribute the product attains.

Usually these metrics may be applied at any of the product levels. They are not always direct measures of the quality characteristics of the finished product, but may be relevant to the achievement of overall quality. Each model may have a different set of attributes at the highest level of the taxonomy, and selection of and definitions for the attributes at all levels may differ. The important point is that the system software requirements define the quality requirements and the definitions of the attributes for them.

Software quality fundamentals

Agreement on quality requirements, as well as clear communication to the software engineer on what constitutes quality, require that the many aspects of quality be formally defined and discussed.

A software engineer should understand the underlying meanings of quality concepts and characteristics and their value to the software under development or to maintenance.

The important concept is that the software requirements define the required quality characteristics of the software and influence the measurement methods and acceptance criteria for assessing these characteristics.

Questions & Answers

what is the difference between C and C++.
Yan Reply
what is software
Sami Reply
software is a instructions like programs
Shambhu
what is the difference between C and C++.
Yan
yes, how?
Hayder
what is software engineering
Ahmad
software engineering is a the branch of computer science deals with the design,development, testing and maintenance of software applications.
Hayder
who is best bw software engineering and cyber security
Ahmad
Both software engineering and cybersecurity offer exciting career prospects, but your choice ultimately depends on your interests and skills. If you enjoy problem-solving, programming, and designing software syste
Hayder
what's software processes
Ntege Reply
I haven't started reading yet. by device (hardware) or for improving design Lol? Here. Requirement, Design, Implementation, Verification, Maintenance.
Vernon
I can give you a more valid answer by 5:00 By the way gm.
Vernon
it is all about designing,developing, testing, implementing and maintaining of software systems.
Ehenew
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Sami
My name M Sami I m 2nd year student
Sami
what is the specific IDE for flutter programs?
Mwami Reply
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Mwaqas Reply
yes
usman
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atul Reply
hlo
Navya
hi
Michael
yes
Subhan
Show the necessary steps with description in resource monitoring process (CPU,memory,disk and network)
samuel Reply
What is software engineering
Tafadzwa Reply
Software engineering is a branch of computer science directed to writing programs to develop Softwares that can drive or enable the functionality of some hardwares like phone , automobile and others
kelvin
if any requirement engineer is gathering requirements from client and after getting he/she Analyze them this process is called
Alqa Reply
The following text is encoded in base 64. Ik5ldmVyIHRydXN0IGEgY29tcHV0ZXIgeW91IGNhbid0IHRocm93IG91dCBhIHdpbmRvdyIgLSBTdGV2ZSBXb3puaWFr Decode it, and paste the decoded text here
Julian Reply
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Vincent
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ALI
how are you ?
ALI
What is the command to list the contents of a directory in Unix and Unix-like operating systems
George Reply
how can i make my own software free of cost
Faizan Reply
like how
usman
hi
Hayder
The name of the author of our software engineering book is Ian Sommerville.
Doha Reply
what is software
Sampson Reply
the set of intruction given to the computer to perform a task
Noor
I want to know about prototype model in software engineering
Malli Reply
Prototype Model is a replica model. In this we plan and build a rough application. Further we launch it for users and if they give their feedback or need any enhancement then we add-on requested features as per the system/user requirements.
KUMAR

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Source:  OpenStax, Software engineering. OpenStax CNX. Jul 29, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10790/1.1
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