Object Oriented Metrics: Generation and Application

Object oriented software has been cited by many [Cox86, Meye87, Coad90, Booc91] as a cure to some of the common problems occurring in software development. In particular, the object oriented paradigm, through inheritance, polymorphism, and encapsulation, allows for more reusable software components, easier software maintenance, and reduced software complexity. However, in order to make these claims, researchers will need to quantitatively measure various attributes of software (e.g., complexity, reusability, and maintainability). In order to efficiently and accurately use software metrics, it is necessary to automate the metric collection process. The metrics group at Virginia Tech has developed a tool (the Metrics Generator) that, through an interactive interface, allows software developers to generate various software metrics from Ada, C, Classic Ada, or C++ source. The most recent use of the tool was a study by Li and Henry [LiWe93] into the maintainability of object oriented source code. The next use of the tool involves the object oriented paradigm and software reusability.