Optimal component selection for component based software development using pliability metric

Abstract

Component Based Software Development (CBSD) has gained widespread acceptance as it often results in higher quality software with a significant reduction in development time and costs. A key idea behind CBSD is the extensive reuse and composition of preexisting modules into new software. In this paper we introduce the pliability metric, which is well suited to a component-based orientation and extends previous metrics. Pliability is a flexible measure that assesses software quality across different quality attributes in terms of the quality of its components. In addition, we have developed an optimal component selection model based on integer programming, for maximizing pliability. Through computational experimentation we demonstrate that this model is capable of finding optimal solutions to problems with a very large number of components and requirements in a short time.