%0 Journal Article
%T ReMoFP: A Tool for Counting Function Points from UML Requirement Models
%A Vitor A. Batista
%A Daniela C. C. Peixoto
%A Eduardo P. Borges
%A Wilson P¨¢dua
%A Rodolfo F. Resende
%A Clarindo Isa¨ªas P. S. P¨¢dua
%J Advances in Software Engineering
%D 2011
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2011/495232
%X Function Point Analysis (FPA) is a widely used technique for measuring software size. It measures software functionality from the user's perspective, usually based on a requirements description. In many software processes, these requirements are represented by UML models. Although there have been attempts to automate the measurement process, FPA counting requires a considerable amount of interpretation which, to be reliable, should be made by experts. On the other hand, fully manual counting methods usually fail to keep synchronized with the requirements model, since requirements frequently change during the development cycle. This paper describes an approach for counting FPA and a compliant tool. This approach makes use of UML requirement models. The tool, called ReMoFP (Requirement Model Function Point counter), leaves all the counting decisions to the analyst, but supports him by ensuring consistency with the requirements represented in the models. The ReMoFP was developed by a software development laboratory in Brazil, and helped it to improve counting productivity, consistency, and maintainability. 1. Introduction Due to complexity and size issues, developing high-quality, cost-effective software is a huge challenge, usually constrained by short schedules. To achieve effective and realistic planning for software development projects, project managers should estimate correctly many software metrics, such as those that reflect size, effort, quality, and risks. Size estimates are used both as input and normalization factor for other relevant metrics. Several well-known methods are available for size measurement; counting LOC (Lines of Code) and Function Point Analysis (FPA) are widely used. This work focuses on FPA, a method that estimates functional complexity, seen from the user viewpoint [1]. Early approaches to FPA were proposed by Albrecht [2]; it has become widely used, despite some weaknesses [3¨C5]. The method has been maintained and updated by IFPUG (the International Function Point Users Group) [1], and was adopted as an ISO and IEEE standard [6]. FPA details are given in many sources, and we omit them, for the sake of brevity. In recent years, Object-Oriented (OO) technology has emerged as a dominant practice in Software Engineering domain. Therefore, it is useful to match traditional Function Point (FP) measurement to new OO approaches [7], including models based on Unified Modeling Language (UML) [8]. In this work, we defined a tool, called ReMoFP (Requirement Model Function Point counter), to help FP experts during FPA counting based on
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ase/2011/495232/