Software Size Estimation of Object-Oriented Systems

Abstmct-software size estimation has been the object of a lot of research in the software engineering community due to the need of reliable size estimates in the utilization of existing software project cost estimation models. This paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of existing size estimation techniques, considers the nature of software size estimation, and presents a software size estimation model which has the potential for providing more accurate size estimates than ex-isting methods. The proposed method takes advantage of a character-istic of object-oriented systems, the natural correspondence between specification and implementation, in order to enable users to come up with better size estimates at early stages of the software development cycle. Through a statistical approach the method also provides a con-fidence interval for the derived size estimates. The relation between the presented software sizing model and project cost estimation has also been considered. Index Terms-Functional specification, object-oriented systems, software cost estimation, software size estimation