METRICS FOR QUALITY ANALYSIS AND IMPROVEMENT OF OBJECT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE

Software metrics are playing an important role in analysing and improv ing quality of software work products during their development. Measur ing the aspects of software complexity for object-oriented software st rongly helps to improve the quality of such systems during their devel opment, while especially focusing on reusability and maintainability. It is widely accepted that more widespread use of object-oriented tech niques can only come about when there are tool systems that provide de velopment support beyond visualising code. Unfortunately, many object- oriented metrics are defined and applied to classroom projects but no evidence is given that the metrics are useful and applicable both from an experience viewpoint and from a tools viewpoint - for industrial o bject-oriented development. Distinct complexity metrics are developed and integrated in a Smalltalk development support system called SmallM etric. Thus, we achieve a basis for software analysis (metrics) and de velopment support (critique) of Smalltalk systems. The main concepts o f the environment including the underlying metrics are explained, its use and operation is discussed, and some results of the implementation and its application to several industrial projects are given with exa mples. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.