Software Metrics

A software metric is a measure of software characteristics which are measurable or countable.

Software metrics are valuable for many reasons, including measuring software performance,
planning work items, measuring productivity, and many other uses.
Within the software development process, many metrics are that are all connected. Software
metrics are similar to the four functions of management: Planning, Organization, Control, or
Improvement.
Classification of Software Metrics
Software metrics can be classified into two types as follows:
1. Product Metrics: These are the measures of various characteristics of the software product.
The two important software characteristics are:
1. Size and complexity of software.
2. Quality and reliability of software.
These metrics can be computed for different stages of SDLC.
2. Process Metrics: These are the measures of various characteristics of the software
development process. For example, the efficiency of fault detection. They are used to measure
the characteristics of methods, techniques, and tools that are used for developing software.
Types of Metrics
Internal metrics: Internal metrics are the metrics used for measuring properties that are viewed
to be of greater importance to a software developer. For example, Lines of Code (LOC) measure.
External metrics: External metrics are the metrics used for measuring properties that are viewed
to be of greater importance to the user, e.g., portability, reliability, functionality, usability, etc.
Hybrid metrics: Hybrid metrics are the metrics that combine product, process, and resource
metrics. For example, cost per FP where FP stands for Function Point Metric.
Project metrics: Project metrics are the metrics used by the project manager to check the
project's progress. Data from the past projects are used to collect various metrics, like time and
cost; these estimates are used as a base of new software. Note that as the project proceeds, the
project manager will check its progress from time-to-time and will compare the effort, cost, and
time with the original effort, cost and time. Also understand that these metrics are used to
decrease the development costs, time efforts and risks. The project quality can also be improved.
As quality improves, the number of errors and time, as well as cost required, is also reduced.
Advantage of Software Metrics
Comparative study of various design methodology of software systems.
For analysis, comparison, and critical study of different programming language concerning their
characteristics.
In comparing and evaluating the capabilities and productivity of people involved in software
development.
In the preparation of software quality specifications.
In the verification of compliance of software systems requirements and specifications.
In making inference about the effort to be put in the design and development of the software
systems.
In getting an idea about the complexity of the code.
In taking decisions regarding further division of a complex module is to be done or not.
In guiding resource manager for their proper utilization.
In comparison and making design tradeoffs between software development and maintenance
cost.
In providing feedback to software managers about the progress and quality during various phases
of the software development life cycle.
In the allocation of testing resources for testing the code.
Disadvantage of Software Metrics
The application of software metrics is not always easy, and in some cases, it is difficult and
costly.
The verification and justification of software metrics are based on historical/empirical data
whose validity is difficult to verify.
These are useful for managing software products but not for evaluating the performance of the
technical staff.
The definition and derivation of Software metrics are usually based on assuming which are not
standardized and may depend upon tools available and working environment.
Most of the predictive models rely on estimates of certain variables which are often not known
precisely.
Size Oriented Metrics
LOC Metrics
It is one of the earliest and simpler metrics for calculating the size of the computer program. It is
generally used in calculating and comparing the productivity of programmers. These metrics are
derived by normalizing the quality and productivity measures by considering the size of the
product as a metric.
Following are the points regarding LOC measures:
1. In size-oriented metrics, LOC is considered to be the normalization value.
2. It is an older method that was developed when FORTRAN and COBOL programming
were very popular.
3. Productivity is defined as KLOC / EFFORT, where effort is measured in person-months.
4. Size-oriented metrics depend on the programming language used.
5. As productivity depends on KLOC, so assembly language code will have more
productivity.
6. LOC measure requires a level of detail which may not be practically achievable.
 7. The more expressive is the programming language, the lower is the productivity.
8. LOC method of measurement does not apply to projects that deal with visual (GUI-
based) programming. As already explained, Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) use forms
basically. LOC metric is not applicable here.
9. It requires that all organizations must use the same method for counting LOC. This is so
because some organizations use only executable statements, some useful comments, and
some do not. Thus, the standard needs to be established.
10. These metrics are not universally accepted.
Based on the LOC/KLOC count of software, many other metrics can be computed:
a. Errors/KLOC.
b. $/ KLOC.
c. Defects/KLOC.
d. Pages of documentation/KLOC.
e. Errors/PM.
f. Productivity = KLOC/PM (effort is measured in person-months).
g. $/ Page of documentation.
Advantages of LOC
1. Simple to measure
Disadvantage of LOC
1. It is defined on the code. For example, it cannot measure the size of the specification.
2. It characterizes only one specific view of size, namely length, it takes no account of
functionality or complexity
3. Bad software design may cause an excessive line of code
4. It is language dependent
5. Users cannot easily understand it