Problematic Software Courts Disaster, Says ICT Expert

By Kuah Guan Oo
Pix by Saliman Leman

BANGI, 21 Feb. 2011 – Software with problems can cause disaster if they are not detected, tested and rectified in a framework of quality certification, says an ICT expert here today.

Prof Dr Aziz Deraman, who is the Vice Chancellor of Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT), said softwares, like humans, are always exposed to diseases like heart attack which can be prevented if it is detected early.

He cited the case of the “SCUD vs Patriot” missiles during the Gulf War where 20 American soldiers were killed and 100 others injured when their Patriot guided missile missed hitting the Iraqi’s SCUD missile as an example where software with problems had brought about disasters.

An arithmetic rectification found that the time calculated for the Patriot to hit the SCUD was 0.34 seconds late and that even though corrections had been made earlier, it was not done to all its programming codes, said Prof Dr Aziz when delivering his inaugural professorial lecture titled “In Search for Quality Software”.

In the case of the rocket launcher Ariane 5 disaster in June 1996, the rocket exploded 40 seconds after take-off because the software specifications for Ariane 4 were used for Ariane 5 when the specifications of the two rockets were different.

“Pre-launch tests on the software were not conducted until the actual launch,” said Prof Dr Aziz who had served in UKM in various capacities for 28 years, including as Dean of the Faculty of Information Science and Technology before he was appointed Vice Chancellor of UMT last year.

He said with the ever-growing dependence on software, the challenges for research in search of quality software were to safeguard the harmony between the software and users; to detect software “illnesses” before disasters strike and to face the situation of attempting to measure the unmeasurable.

But the biggest challenge in the search for quality software was to try to measure the software because “we cannot control what we cannot measure”.

 

For this reason, several approaches had been developed to try to measure the quality of software such as quantitative values to explain a certain phenomenon; matrix size of the software which is getting less and less relevant and user evaluation that is directed at only external factors and matrix as a measurement of “quality software”.  

Prof Aziz, who had held the post of Deputy Director of the UKM Computer Centre, said the approach they had used to evaluate the software quality of the university’s  Centre for Information Technology was based on “Goal/Question/Matrix” or GQM which is a technique to identify the important matrix in the lifespan of the software. .

This approach could lead to the certification of the software by a third party similar to ISO certification, said Prof Dr Aziz who was born at di Kampong Tok ku, Cabang Tiga Kuala Terengganu in 1959.

He had his primary education at Sekolah Kebangsaan Pusat Cabang Tiga Kuala Terengganu and secondary education at Sekolah Menengah Sains Pahang before doing his matriculation at Sekolah Alam Shah.

He was offered a place to do medicine at UKM but he switched to Computer Science where he graduated with his first degree in 1982. He obtained his Masters from Glasgow University in 1984 and his PhD from UMIST Manchester in 1992.

Apart from his lectures and research works and publications, Prof Aziz is also active with organisations outside the campus where he had served as advisor, panel member and consultant in ICT. He has to date supervised 37 Master students and 20 PhD candidates.

                                                           Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia