III:HCC:Small: Measuring and Monitoring Technical Debt

交付社会所需的日益复杂的软件系统的一个主要障碍是维护现有系统的资源消耗。高昂的维护费用与软件质量随时间下降的趋势有关。维护通常是在资源紧张的情况下执行的，所需的工作量最少。通常，这一最小工作量与维护软件质量所需的工作量之间存在差距。这一缺口可以被视为一种债务，它带来了短期利益(通常释放时间较短)，但哪些债务可能需要连同利息一起偿还？(生产力下降)，稍后。许多实践者发现这个比喻直观地吸引人，而且它已经改变了人们看待长期软件维护的方式。但它缺乏健全的理论基础、基于经验的模型和实际实施，阻碍了它转变维护方式的能力。因此，这项工作的贡献是提供基于经验的模型，描述和验证管理技术债务的机制。该项目还支持国际和平协会指导不同学生群体的活动，以及密歇根大学在提高妇女和少数民族科技水平方面在全国范围内的突出地位。

A major obstacle to delivering the increasingly complex software systems that society demands is the resource drain from maintaining existing systems. The high expense of maintenance is related to the tendency of software quality to decline over time. Maintenance is often performed under tight resource constraints, with the minimal amount of effort required. Typically, there is a gap between this minimal amount of work and the amount required to maintain the software's quality. This gap can be viewed as a type of debt, which brings a short-term benefit (usually shorter release time) but which might have to be paid back, with ?interest? (decreased productivity), later. Many practitioners find this metaphor intuitively appealing and it is already transforming the way that long-term software maintenance is viewed. But its lack of a sound theoretical basis, empirically-based models, and practical implementation hinder its ability to transform how maintenance is done. Thus the contribution of this work is to provide empirically based models describing, and validated mechanisms for managing, technical debt. This project also supports the PI's activities in mentoring a diverse population of students, as well as UMBC's nation-wide prominence in the advancement of women and minorities in science and technology.