Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Survey Of Software Metric Use In Research Software Development, Nasir U. Eisty, George K. Thiruvathukal, Jeffrey C. Carver

George K. Thiruvathukal

Background: Breakthroughs in research increasingly depend on complex software libraries, tools, and applications aimed at supporting specific science, engineering, business, or humanities disciplines. The complexity and criticality of this software motivate the need for ensuring quality and reliability. Software metrics are a key tool for assessing, measuring, and understanding software quality and reliability. Aims: The goal of this work is to better understand how research software developers use traditional software engineering concepts, like metrics, to support and evaluate both the software and the software development process. One key aspect of this goal is to identify how the set of metrics …