The software engineering laboratory: Objectives

A great deal of time and money has been and will continue to be spent in developing software. Much effort has gone into the generation of various software development methodologies that are meant to improve both the process and the product ([MYER, 75], [BAKE, 74], [WOLV, 72]). Unfortunately, it has not always been clear what the underlying principles involved in the software development process are and what effect the methodologies have; it is not always clear what constitutes a better product. Thus progress in finding techniques that produce better, cheaper software depends on developing new deeper understandings of good software and the software development process through studying the underlying principles involved in software and the development process. At the same time we must continue to produce software. A better understanding of the factors that affect the development of software and their interrelationships is required in order to gain better insights into the underlying principles. The Software Engineering Laboratory has been established, in August 1976, at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in cooperation with the University of Maryland to promote such understanding. The next section gives an overview of the research objectives and experiments being performed at the Laboratory. Section III contains the current list of factors that affect the software development process or product and are to be studied or neutralized. The data collection and data management activities are discussed in Section IV. The last section contains information on the current status and future plans for the Laboratory.