Automated Software Inspection

uality is an elusive goal throughout the software development industry. The common assumption is that there simply is no efficient way to improve quality without significantly lengthening the development cycle, increasing development costs, or both. Releasing quality software on schedule and on budget is almost impossible. Ever-shorter development cycles, limited engineering and QA resources, and increasing software complexity have combined to cause a decline in the quality of software and an increase in the number of software defects. The economic impact from these defects is extremely high; software defects are the leading cause of failure for mission-critical applications and can cause serious damage to the software's eventual direct or indirect users and to the development organization's business. The software engineering community has long known that software inspection is an effective technique for removing defects that also brings significant long-term benefits. Inspection succeeds because it is effective in detecting and removing critical errors early in the development process, before code reaches testing or deployment. Automated software inspection (ASI) technologies are now emerging which overcome many of the disadvantages inherent in manual inspections. These technologies, delivered as commercial tools or services, can locate many common programming faults – the same faults that can cause some of the most damaging defects. The strategy behind ASI is to analyze the source code before it is tested and identify potential problems in order to re-code them before they manifest themselves as programming bugs. The most innovative aspect of automated inspection is its ability to debug large amounts of code in a very short period of time. This paper discusses the reasons why ASI is needed, looks at the defects ASI can detect and how they are found, describes the technology behind ASI and how it complements traditional testing techniques, and compares and contrasts the available solutions. Software inspection or code review is a visual examination of source code to detect defects; it may also be used to track adherence to coding standards. It is important to note that inspection is not the same as testing—both are needed to ensure the highest quality software—and there are several important differences between the two. s When we test, we execute the code s When we inspect, we review the code s Testing occurs during the QA/testing phases of development s Inspection occurs during the coding phase