Predicting the order of fault-prone modules in legacy software

A goal of software,are quality modeling is to recommend modules for reliability enhancement early enough to prevent poor quality. Reliability improvement techniques include more rigorous design and code reviews and more extensive testing. This paper introduces the concept of module-order, models for guiding software reliability Enhancement and provides an empirical case study that shows haul such models can be used. A module order model predicts the rank-order of modules according to a quantitive quality factor. The case study examined a large legacy telecommunications system. We found that the amount of new and changed code due to development of a release can be a better predictor of code churn due to subsequent bug fires, compared to software product metrics alone. In such projects, process-related measures derived front configuration management data may be adequate for software quality modeling, without resorting to software product measurement fools and expertise.