Asynchronous Software Inspection Hyper Code System (WWW-based tool for software inspection)

Uzair Sarwar BESE 10093\ Department of Engineering

1. Introduction:
Inspections were first introduced in the mid-1970s by Michael Fagan [5], and experience and research over Twenty years has shown them to be serviceable when striving for high-quality software products. Despite the evident benefits, conventional inspections are recognizes having some shortcomings. The following is the list of problems that might arise within the inspection process, [6], [8], and [12] and is based on the hypothesis that the organizational prerequisites, adequate commitment and resources etc. are met.

Insufficient knowledge of either the process or the document xto be inspected. Incorrect review rate in individual checking or in meeting Inspectors do not understand the document Insufficient preparation. Process practiced incorrectly. Problems in meetings Moderator domination Non-participating and ego-involved members Interpretation difficulties Physical difficulties Document management Defects Recording difficulties Geographical diversion

FEATURES: THE FEATURES AND FUNCTIONALITY PROPOSED HERE ARE BASED ON EXPERIENCES OF FORMER INSPECTION TOOL IMPLEMENTATIONS, WELL AS TAKING INTO ACCOUNT GROUPWARE AND WWW VIEWPOINTS.
The tool includes the following functionality: Tailoring the underlying process model for a given Project Adding, modifying, or removing an inspector entity Adding, modifying, or removing a checklist entity Adding or removing a document to be inspected

Assigning documents to inspectors

Automatic e-mail notifications for inspectors/leader about new inspection assignments assignments not eliciting a reaction in a certain length of time that may be delaying the whole inspection, and completed inspections

Adding, modifying, or removing on-line annotations, which can be initially classified by the user. Annotations are clearly marked on the document to be inspected.
Combining annotations into a single summary report (with hypertext links to the issues raised) Gathering information about the time required for the inspection and storing of this information in a statistical database Reporting on a given inspection, or inspections within a certain period of time.

3. PROCESS STEPS:
THE INSPECTION PROCESS USED WITH THE TOOL, BASED ON THE GOAL-RULE-CHECKLIST-METRIC (GRCM) QUALITY MODEL BY TREVON [14], AND THE SPECIAL INSTRUMENTS AND ENTITIES WHICH ACCOMPLISH THE STEPS ARE DEPICTED IN FIGURE 1.
3.1 Individual Inspection:

Typically, individual inspectors work alone on the material to be inspected using the source documents and checklists provided, and therefore investment in tailoring and updating of checklists is a major point for successful preparation. In addition, individual inspectors should be provided with informal information that may contribute to a better understanding of the artifacts, presented in the form of a design rationale which explains why an artifact is designed the way it is.
3.2 Peer Inspection:

Peer inspection is an alternative to individual inspection, because inspectors who are not familiar with the specific domain may require extra support.

3.3 Software Designer: There a software designer participates in the inspection and guides the process. His role is similar to that of the design rationale in individual inspection, i.e. he explains the background to the design decisions and guides the inspection to focus on those topics that are most essential. The time spent may be considered from two contradictory viewpoints. Without the support of a designer it requires only the time of one person, but may be inefficient. Two persons use double the amount of time, but their cooperation may increase efficiency. In order to make the peer inspection effective, roles are assigned, with associated checklists, as in individual inspection. The guidelines for size and efficiency are the same as in individual inspection.

3.4 Inspection Leader:

Logging in public inspection is managed by an inspection leader and may be implemented at the same time but in a different place or at a different time and in a different place, for example. This physical and temporal distribution of inspection reduces the common time required and makes the reconciliation of participants timetables easier. The logging and recording of agreed, unique issues is one responsibility of the inspection leader. 3.5 Group Inspection: If controversy is evident or discussion is required, a group inspection may be called, the main purpose of which will be to continue the discussion on open issues, i.e. topics on which the participants disagree. The inspection leader steers the discussion of controversial issues, the group discusses them and negotiates, and the opinions are recorded. As this phase focuses on only a small part of the prepared material, the guidelines for an inspection meeting (e.g. inspection rate) are not relevant [15].

The Web inspection Prototype (WiP): The Web inspection Prototype (WiP) tool illustrates some characteristics of the inspection tool referred to above. The foremost objective of the prototype is to experiment with the possibilities and limitations of the WWW as a collaborative inspection environment, rather than to implement a full-featured tool. The prototype is nevertheless designed in a manner that allows later enhancements.

Advantages: Because of the recent popularity of the WWW, browsers are already installed in many organizations. Browsers are also moderately easy to use and inexpensive to purchase, so there is no need for extensive investments. The WWW is global. Building WWW applications is becoming simpler with the aid of sophisticated tools such as Java and ActiveX. Other resources for Web development are numerous and easily accessible. Information stored on the Web pages is (ideally) accessible at any time. Work does not have to be completed during office hours. The user-oriented nature of the WWW allows end-users total control over the flow of information: what they want to see and when they want to see it.

Disadvantages:

However, there are some drawbacks, including: The security of the WWW and the Internet has been actively debated over recent years. Some critical security problems prevent full advantage being taken of the new technologies. Limitations of the HTTP and HTML standards. These protocols were not originally designed to deal with advanced data formats such as video or voice, nor were they intended to hold anything more than associations between hyperlinked documents, so that they lack adequate support for real interactivity between applications and the end-user. Truly interactive applications must be built using a variety of plug-ins. Technological problems. In order to access material stored electronically, one must have a computer with adequate resources to access and manipulate data in a compatible way. Furthermore, there are demands on the quality of the equipment used: Comprehensive WWW access requires fairly fast network connections. Reading on-line documents is less effective than reading printed material.

Conclusion: Asynchronous Software inspection removes the constraints that the participants work together at the same time and place. It also gives everyone a chance to contribute toward the meeting and pursue many discussions of interest in parallel. The inspection comments are automatically placed in a structure that makes them easy to use for future reference. WiP tool, allows an inspector to annotate a document and provides access to hypertext documents containing help regarding the process or the tool and related documents and checklists without needing to leave the annotation tool. Time taken for inspection process is reduced up to a massive content as after finishing the commenting task, the inspector receives a summary report on the inspection, showing the time taken and the inspection rate. In addition to the inspector's summary report, a very basic set of statistical functions is included in the WiP tool. The results of purposed questionnaire indicate that even though certain constituents of the annotation tool were disliked, the idea of on-line commenting in general was well-liked. The elimination of tangling with a variety of paper documents and reports appealed to many participants. It possibly encourages inspectors to search for similar but separate defects and give them new ideas for their job. The familiar user interface of the WWW is easy to use. Some of the connections between documents were reported to be unclear and need to be refined, however. The accessibility of the checklists and help documents directly from the tool are appreciated. All in all, in response to this successful experiment with the WiP tool, the intention to develop the tool further and rectify the shortcomings have been recognized.