Abstract
A proper requirement definition phase is of a paramount importance in software engineering. It is the first and prime mean to realize efficient and reliable systems. System requirements are usually formulated and expressed in natural language, given its universality and ease of communication and writing. Unfortunately, natural language can be a source of ambiguity, complexity and omissions, which may cause system failures. Among the different approaches proposed by the software engineering community, Behavioural-Driven Development (BDD) is affirming as a valid, practical method to structure effective and non-ambiguous requirement specifications. The paper tackles with the problem of measuring requirements in BDD by assessing some traditional Natural Language Processing-related metrics with respect to a sample excerpt of requirement specification rewritten according to the BDD criteria. This preliminary assessment is made on the ERTMS-ETCS Level 3 case study whose specification, up to this date, is not managed by a standardisation body. The paper demonstrates the necessity of novel metrics able to cope with the BDD specification paradigms.
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Acknowledgements
The work of Maria Stella de Biase is granted by PON Ricerca e Innovazione 2014/2020 MUR—Ministero dell’Universitá e della Ricerca (Italy)—with the Ph.D. program XXXVI cycle. The work of Mariapia Raimondo is granted by INPS—Istituto Nazionale di Previdenza Sociale (Italy)—with the Ph.D. program XXXVI cycle.
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Campanile, L., Biase, M.S.d., Marrone, S., Raimondo, M., Verde, L. (2022). On the Evaluation of BDD Requirements with Text-based Metrics: The ETCS-L3 Case Study. In: Czarnowski, I., Howlett, R.J., Jain, L.C. (eds) Intelligent Decision Technologies. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 309. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3444-5_48
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