An Empirical Study on Software Error Detection: Voting, Instrumentation, and Fagan Inspection - Software Engineering Conference, 1995. Proceedings., 1995 Asia Pacific

This paper presents the results of an experiment that compared error detection capability of voting, instrumentation, and Fagan inspection methods. Several experiments have measured effectiveness of various error detection methods. However, most experiments have used different programs; consequently, the results are generally incompatible and do not allow one to make objective comparison on the cost-effectiveness of various approaches. No software can be developed using unlimited amount of resources, practitioners need empirical and objective data on the cost-effectiveness of various errw detection methods to decide which methods to use during sojbvare development. Results of this experiment is significant because these methods have been applied to the same program. Futhermore, the participant 's educational and industrial experience are comparable to that of the previous experiments.. We conprmed the previous Pnding that detecting errors in reliable programs is diBcult; none of the three methods detected more than half of all the known errors in the programs. Of the three methods employed, participants detected more errors by using Fagan inspection method than they did by voting or instrumentation. When the average number of hours needed to detect an error was compared, Fagan inspection method was shown to be more cost-effective than instrumentation method.