Software Metrics

 Capsule Description

Effective management of any process requires quan- tification, measurement, and modeling. Software metrics provide a quantitative basis for the develop- ment and validation of models of the software devel- opment process. Metrics can be used to improve software productivity and quality. This module in- troduces the most commonly used software metrics and reviews their use in constructing models of the software development process. Although current metrics and models are certainly inadequate, a num- ber of organizations are achieving promising results through their use. Results should improve further as we gain additional experience with various metrics and models.

ware properties to be measured. As a result, the same metric has been used to measure very different software properties. Moreover, we have virtually no theoretical models and a multitude of metrics, only a few of which have enjoyed any widespread use or acceptance.

Faced with this situation, the author has chosen to

indicate the great diversity of metrics that have been proposed and to discuss some of the most common ones in detail. In the process, the underlying as- sumptions, environment of application, and validity of various metrics are examined. The author be- lieves that current metrics and models are far from perfect, but that properly applied metrics and models can provide significant improvements in the soft- ware development process.