An environment for measuring and improving the quality of object-oriented software

It is widely accepted that more widespread use of object-oriented technique s can only come about when there are techniques and tool systems that provi de design support beyond visualizing code. Distinct software metrics are co nsidered as being able to support the design by indicating critical compone nts with respect to various quality factors such as maintainability and rel iability. Unfortunately, many object-oriented metrics were defined and appl ied to classroom projects, but no evidence was given that the metrics are u seful and applicable-both from an experience viewpoint and from a tools vie wpoint-for industrial object-oriented development. Distinct complexity metr ics have been developed and integrated in a Smalltalk development support s ystem called SmallMetric. Thus we achieved a basis for software analysis (m etrics) and development support (critique) of Smalltalk systems. The main c oncepts of the environment including the underlying metrics are explained, its use and operation are discussed and some results of the implementation and its application to several industrial projects are given with examples. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.