Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!convex!killer!ames!mailrus!purdue!spaf
From: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Project Sizing and Estimating
Message-ID: <5033@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Date: 6 Oct 88 01:08:12 GMT
References: <551@emdeng.Dayton.NCR.COM>
Sender: news@cs.purdue.EDU
Reply-To: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University
Lines: 31


Funny you should ask that (about size/cost estimates).  It turns out
that many (most?) published methods don't fare too well when attempts
are made to validate them against real data, that is, programs not
written as student projects.

One recent exception is the COPSTAR/COPMO estimator developed by Sam
Conte & M. Rathi as part of a SERC project on metrics. It has been
validated against a few million lines of code of real projects from 6
different companies and in 3 or 4 different languages (including ADA).

You can get copies of the public tech reports by writing to
northern@cs.purdue.edu and asking for them.  Employees of SERC
affiliate companies can get copies of all the literature, public or
not, plus a copy of the program that implements the metrics...as well
as info on the other 15 or so software engineering projects currently
underway in the Center.

    (SERC is the Software Engineering Research Center, an
    NSF-sponsored, University-Industry Cooperative Research
    Center, jointly located at Purdue University and the
    University of Florida.)

    (If your company isn't an affiliate or you don't know if
    it is an affiliate, write to me -- I don't want to make this
    sound more like a commercial than it may already.)
-- 
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida  Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet:  spaf@cs.purdue.edu	uucp:	...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf