Software quality is a difficult term to define It means many

Software quality is a difficult term to define. It means many things to many different people. Consider the following

What do you think software quality is composed of?

Why is quality so difficult to define?

Do different software programs have different definitions for quality?

What experiences have you had with poor software quality? Good quality?

How would you measure quality?

Solution

Software quality is a relative scale, not an absolute.Let us say in

general Software quality refers to how well the software helps the

user do their task. It means different to different people..For example,

the Development team might define quality relative to the number of

bugs or stability. Sales might define it as how easy the product is

to sell. And the Executive team might define it as how well the

product supports company objectives. Summing all things, I see software

quality is composed of two notions:

1) Software functional quality

2) Software structural quality

Software quality measures how well software is designed (structural

quality), and how well the software conforms to that design (Functional

quality).

Yes, quality is difficult to define beacsue it is relative, not absolute.

It varies from need to need. For some it is the \"capability of a software

product to obey the requirements, while for others it may be different.

Yes, Different software programs have diffeent definition for quality.

I have had an experience of poor software quality.

Once I worked in a project that had a file with a oot of repeated

methods, I took about a week at my that time rate, meaning about

$1200 in time that did not represent value for the business.

Backend error messages that are meant for logging purposes but are

displayed to the user directly. In most cases the software will

still work as intended, but the error can confuse or interrupt the

user experience.

For measurement, you can use different techniques to evaluate the

quality of a software product:

1) Process: The use (or not) of certain processes is a good hint about the quality of a development process. Bugtracking, automated tests, versioning tools...

2) Bug detection: As BillThor explained, bug detection rate is a good indicator.

3) Completness: Which part of the needed features are actually implemented.