An Experimental Analysis of Code Inspection and Static Analysis for Concurrent Java Components
[experimental materials][presentation slides]
 

Abstract:
The results of empirical studies are limited to particular contexts, difficult to generalise and the studies themselves are expensive to perform. Despite these problems, empirical studies in software engineering can be made effective and they are important to both researchers and practitioners. The key to their effectiveness lies in the maximisation of the information that can be gained by examining existing studies, conducting power analyses for an accurate minimum sample size and benefiting from previous studies through replication. This approach was applied in a controlled experiment examining the combination of automated static analysis tools and code inspection in the context of verification and validation (V&V) of concurrent Java components. The combination of these V&V technologies was shown to be cost-effective despite the size of the study, which thus contributes to research in V&V technology evaluation.

Study components have been contributed to the Benchmark of Documented Multi-Threaded Bugs [related information].

 “There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge. . . observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.”
Denis Diderot