Empirically based analysis of failures in software systems

An empirical analysis of failures in software systems is used to evaluate several specific issues and questions in software testing, reliability analysis, and reuse. The issues examined include the following: diminishing marginal returns of testing; effectiveness of multiple fault-detection and testing phases; measuring system reliability versus function or component reliability; developer bias regarding the amount of testing that functions or components will receive; fault-proneness of reused versus newly developed software; and the relationship between degree of reuse and development effort and fault-proneness. Failure data from a large software manufacturer and a NASA production environment were collected and analyzed.<
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