Software Inspection

Software inspections are structured peer reviews of code/artifacts aimed at finding defects.

Inspection phases

planning → overview → preparation → meeting → rework → follow-up

Types of reviews

• Inspection — formal, defect-focused, follows the phases above.
• Walkthrough — author leads peers through the artifact.
• Buddy check — lightweight check by a single peer.

Defect metrics

• NCE — number of code errors.
• WCE — weighted number of code errors.

Three types of metrics

1. Process metrics — error density, timetable metrics, error removal effectiveness, productivity.
2. Product metrics — measures of the software itself:
   • KLOC — thousands of lines of code, a classic size measure.
   • FP (Function Points) — measure of development resources required, based on functionality specified.
3. Project metrics — effort, cost, schedule.

Related

• Refactoring