Definition

Back-Fired Function Points (BFP) estimate the number of function points of an application. This code-derived metric is based on the lines of code, weighted by an abacus for a given technology. The abacus is taken from QSM (Quantitative Software Management).

Example

An application is composed of 3 different technologies:

• Java (100K lines of code)
• PL/SQL (20K lines of code)
• Javascript (10K lines of code)

The abacus table indicates how many source lines of code is observed in average to constitute one function points, for each technology:

• Java: 53 lines of code for 1 BFP
• PL/SQL: 37 lines of code for 1 BFP
• Javascript: 47 lines of code for 1 BFP

Back to our application example:

• Java represents ~1,886 BFPs
• PL/SQL represents ~540 BFPs
• Javascript represents ~212 BFPs
• Total application represents ~2,638 BFPs

This metric is captured each time an application is scanned with CAST Highlight and is presented over time in the TRENDS dashboard as shown below.