Modelling method heuristics for better quality products

摘要

Development methods contain heuristics and constraints that help in producing good quality products. Whereas CASE tools enforce method constraints, they rarely support heuristic checking. This paper develops a generic quality model, capable of handling both method constraints and heuristics, which forms the basis of a uniform mechanism for building quality products. The model is metric based, hierarchical in nature, and links metrics to the developmental decisions that are available in a method. The use of this model and the associated quality assessment process is demonstrated through an example of the Yourdon method.