Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The International Function Point Users' Group (IFPUG) moved from Canada
to the United States in 1986. Soon after, the IFPUG began to offer certification ex-
aminations to ensure accuracy in function point counts.
The initial examination was developed by Al Albrecht, who was at SPR at the
time, having retired from IBM. In later decades, the IFPUG would become the
world's largest software metrics organization with branches in more than 25 coun-
tries.
Function point metrics began to replace older metrics such as “lines of code”
and “cost per defect” for economic studies. The lines of code (LOC) metric ignores
requirements and design and penalizes high-level languages. The cost per defect
metric ignores fixed costs and penalizes quality. Function points are the most ac-
curate metrics for software economic analysis.
The SPQR/20 estimation tool in 1984 was the first commercial estimation tool
built around function point metrics. It was also the first estimating tool with integ-
rated sizing. It produced sizes of source code volumes for 30 languages and sizes
of various paper documents such as requirements, design, and user manuals.
This decade witnessed the rise (and fall) of numerous computer- and software-
related companies. Some of these achieved bursts of glory but eventually suc-
cumbed to technical malaise. Some of the names of companies that thrived during
this decade include Amdahl, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Burroughs,
Control Data Corporation (CDC), Wang (a pioneer in word processing), Data Gen-
eral, Tandem, the RCA computer line, the Honeywell computer line, the Bull com-
puter line, the Xerox computer line, the AT&T personal computer line, the ITT
personal computer line (not fully IBM-compatible), and quite a few others. Some
companies that grew rapidly in this era still prosper, such as Hewlett-Packard. Oth-
ers such as Sun were acquired, in this case by Oracle.
The rise and fall of companies in the computing and software industries is an
interesting story. Some of the issues that caused business failures included the rise
of IBM, attempts to lock clients into proprietary hardware and software, and a
widespread failure to recognize the importance of personal computers as a world-
changing event in business operations. For example, DEC was late in bringing out
a personal computer, and when it did, its computers were not fully compatible with
IBM's, which by then was on its way to being the main tool of millions of corpor-
ate personnel.
Although the fundamental technology was designed in the previous decade,
Sony and Philips combined to bring out the very successful “compact disk read-
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