Object-oriented metrics: an overview

1997

In the pursuit of ever increasing productivity, the need to be able to measure specific aspects of software is generally agreed upon. As object oriented programming languages are becoming more and more widely used, metrics specifically designed for object oriented software are required. In recent years there has been an explosion of new, object oriented software metrics proposed in the literature. Unfortunately, many or most of these proposed metrics have not been validated to measure what they claim to measure. In fact, an analysis of many of these metrics shows that they do not satisfy basic properties of measurement theory, and thus their application has to be suspect. In this paper ten improved metrics are proposed and validated. 1 Introduction In the early days of computer applications, software development was best described as art, rather than science. The absence of design guidelines often resulted in spaghetti code that was unintelligible to those charged with maintaining t...

2014

Metrics help in identifying potential problem areas and finding these problems in the phase they are developed decreases the cost and avoids major ripple effects from these in later development stages. These days, Object Oriented Paradigm is mainly used for all practical purposes, hence accessing Object Oriented Systems is a major research area in Software Engineering. As proved by researchers Procedural metrics are unfit for measuring various OO characteristics. Many researchers have proposed different OO metrics suite. This paper discusses the most commonly used OO metrics suite (CK, MOOD & LI) on the basis of characteristic they measure. An advanced metric for inheritance is also discussed. The strengths and weaknesses of all these are identified. The paper concludes by identifying that none of the metrics suite is full proof and there are flaws in almost all of them. Moreover, there is no single metric that can measure all the aspects of an OO System. Rather some of the suites h...

International Journal of Computer Applications, 2015

Object oriented metrics have become more important in software development environment. They are used to measure software quality and to estimate the cost, to enhance reliability, maintainability and effort of software projects. Object oriented metrics estimate the complexity of OO programs. This paper highlights all the object oriented metrics which are proposed in the last two decades such as CK metrics, Moose Metrics, QMOOD Metrics, GQM, MOOSE, LI Metrics, Chen Metrics, Lorenz Kidd Metrics, Reuse Metrics and EMOOSE. The need for such metrics is particularly acute when an organization is adopting a new technology for which established practices have yet to be improved. This research addresses these desires through the development and implementation of a suite of metrics for OO design. The equations and measurement calculation methods for all mentioned OO metrics are clearly defined. In this research paper a java program is taken as a model with OOP concepts such as inheritance, polymorphism, and abstraction. The above mentioned Object oriented metrics are applied on this java program and the results of each metrics are tabulated clearly. The objective of the research is to select the correct object oriented metrics for their models and application for software developers.

Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 1992

An acceptable measure of sofhvare quality must quantify sofhvare complexity. Traditional software metrics such as lines of code, sofrware science, cyclomatic complexity are investigated as possible indicators of complexity of objectoriented systems. This research reports the effects of polymorphism and inheritance on the complexity of objectoriented systems as measured by the traditional metrics. The results of this research indicate that traditional nzetrics are applicable to the measurement of the complexity of object-oriented systems.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

This full-day workshop was organized in four sessions. The first three were thematic technical sessions dedicated to the presentation of the recent research results of participants. Seven, out of eleven accepted submissions were orally presented during these three sessions. The first session also included a metrics collection tool demonstration. The themes of the sessions were, respectively, "Metrics Definition and Collection", "Quality Assessment" and "Metrics Validation". The last session was dedicated to the discussion of a set of topics selected by the participants.

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2000

A suite of object oriented software metrics has recently been proposed. While the authors have taken care to ensure their metrics have a sound measurement theoretical basis, we argue that is premature to begin applying such metrics while there remains uncertainty about the precise definitions of many of the quantities to be observed and their impact upon subsequent indirect metria. In particular, we show some of the ambiguities associated with the seemingly simple concept of the number of methods per class. The usefulness of the proposed metrics, and others, would be greatly enhanced if clearer guidance concerning their application to specific languages were to be provided. Such empirical considerations are as important as the theoretical issues raised by the authors. Zndex Terms-CR categories and subject descriptors: D.2.8 [software engineering]: metrics; D.2.9 [software engineering]: management; F.2.3 [analysis of algorithms and problem complexity]: tradeoffs among complexity measures; K.6.3 [management of computing and information systems]: software management. General terms: Class, complexity, design, management, metria, object orientation.

1997

Abstract In this paper, we examine the current state in the field of object-oriented design metrices. We describe three sets of currently available metrics suites, namely, those of Chidamber and Kemerer (1993), Lorenze and Kidd (1994) and Abreu (1995). We consider the important features of each set, and assess the appropriateness and usefulness of each in evaluating the design of object-oriented systems.

Journal of Object Technology, 2006

The importance of software measurement is increasing leading to development of new measurement techniques. As the development of object-oriented software is rising, more and more metrics are being defined for object-oriented languages. Many metrics have been proposed related to various object-oriented constructs like class, coupling, cohesion, inheritance, information hiding and polymorphism. The applicability of metrics developed by previous researchers is mostly limited to requirement, design and implementation phase. Exception handling is a desirable feature of software that leads to robust design and must be measured. This research addresses this need and introduces a new set of design metrics for object-oriented code. Two metrics are developed that measure the amount of robustness included in the code. The metrics are analytically evaluated against Weyuker's proposed set of nine axioms. These set of metrics are calculated and analyzed for standard projects and accordingly ways in which project managers can utilize these metrics are suggested. SOFTWARE DESIGN METRICS FOR OBJECT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE 122 J OURNAL OF OBJECT TECHNOLOGY V OL. 6, NO. 1

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 1994

Abstruct-Given the central role that software development plays in the delivery and application of information technology, managers are increasingly focusing on process improvement in the software development area. This demand has spurred the provision of a number of new and/or improved approaches to software development, with perhaps the most prominent being object-orientation (00). In addition, the focus on process improvement has increased the demand for software measures, or metrics with which to manage the process. The need for such metrics is particularly acute when an organization is adopting a new technology for which established practices have yet to be developed. This research addresses these needs through the development and implementation of a new suite of metrics for 00 design. Metrics developed in previous research, while contributing to the field's understanding of software development processes, have generally been subject to serious criticisms, including the lack of a theoretical base. Following Wand and Weber, the theoretical base chosen for the metrics was the ontology of Bunge. Six design metrics are developed, and then analytically evaluated against Weyuker's proposed set of measurement principles. An automated data collection tool was then developed and implemented to collect an empirical sample of these metrics at two field sites in order to demonstrate their feasibility and suggest ways in which managers may use these metrics for process improvement.