A VALIDATION OF OBJECT-ORIENTED DESIGN METRICS AS QUALITY INDICATORS

This paper presents the results of a study in which we empirically inv estigated the suite of object-oriented (OO) design metrics introduced in [13]. More specifically, our goal is to assess these metrics as pre dictors of fault-prone classes and, therefore, determine whether they can be used as early quality indicators. This study is complementary t o the work described in [30] where the same suite of metrics had been used to assess frequencies of maintenance changes to classes. To perfo rm our validation accurately, we collected data on the development of eight medium-sized information management systems based on identical r equirements. All eight projects were developed using a sequential life cycle model, a well-known OO analysis/design method and the C++ progr amming language. Based on empirical and quantitative analysis, the adv antages and drawbacks of these OO metrics are discussed. Several of Ch idamber and Kemerer's OO metrics appear to be useful to predict class fault-proneness during the early phases of the life-cycle. Also, on ou r data set, they are better predictors than ''traditional'' code metri cs, which can only be collected at a later phase of the software devel opment processes.