What is software?
What is software?
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什么是软件？
DOI：
10.1007/s10515-008-0031-y
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发表时间：
2008
影响因子：
3.4
通讯作者：
L. Osterweil
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
L. Osterweil
本文对前一版本的主要补充是注意到经验方法可能对这些理解做出的潜在关键贡献。在本文中，我们认为，通过测量对象的能力，对对象（物理或非物理）的理解将大大增强。的确，开尔文勋爵在100多年前就建议过：当你能衡量你所说的东西，并用数字来表达它时，你就对它有所了解；但是，当你不能测量它，当你不能用数字表达它时，你的知识是贫乏的，不能令人满意的；它可能是知识的开端，但无论事情是什么，你的思想几乎还没有发展到科学的地步。在这种情况下，经验方法研究应该被看作是获得知识和建立软件本质科学的必要条件，因为它解决了如何度量软件的各个方面的问题。本文以一个恰当的例子来关注如何定义软件的一个特定的基本度量，即它的大小。这似乎是一个基本的度量，然而我们注意到，似乎不存在这样令人满意的软件大小度量。解决这个问题和相关问题一直是实证方法界关注的焦点。社区在理解如何建立这样的计算机软件度量方面的成功，对于在计算机软件工程中更有效地取得进展显然是重要的，但实际上也可能有重要的分支
The main addition that this paper makes to the previous version is to note a potentially key contribution that Empirical Methods could make to these understandings. In the paper we argue that the understanding of an object (physical or non-physical) is greatly enhanced by the ability to measure that object. Indeed, Lord Kelvin suggested, over 100 years ago that::: when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of Science, whatever the matter may be.That being the case, Empirical Methods research should be viewed as being essential to gaining knowledge and establishing the science of the nature of software, in that it addresses issues of how to measure various aspects of software. This paper focuses as a case in point on how to define one particular basic measure of software, namely its size. This would seem to be a basic measure and yet we note that no such satisfactory measure of software size seems to exist. Grappling with this and related questions has been a focus of the Empirical Methods community. The community’s success in understanding how to establish such measures of computer software is clearly important to progress in being more effective in computer software engineering, but might indeed also have important ramifications