Metrics for measuring OO software quality

Group

Sami Mäkelä

Sami Hyrynsalmi
Home page

Overview

We consider methods to analyze the quality of software systems, especially object-oriented programs. We have developed general methods to measure dependencies between various parts of a software system. Parts can be methods, classes, packages, etc., and there also exist many interpretations for these dependencies. So far we have analyzed various cohesion metrics (based on a certain kind of dependency) and found them to have hidden size dependence which can be 'eliminated' by proper normalization of raw metrics results. We have also proposed a new kind of external cohesion view and studied the relation of it and other metrics to various proposed refactoring methods to improve program quality.

Goals

Develop and validate metrics, tools, and software analysis methods for measuring the quality of various (abstract) entities of software systems. Metrics are developed to measure all kinds of software system entities ranging from small methods and class modules to elements of software architectures.

Publications

Sami Hyrynsalmi. Arkkitehtuurikomponentin laadun arvioiminen mittaamalla (in Finnish). Tietojenkäsittelytiede (31):22-42, Nov 2010.
Sami Hyrynsalmi and Ville Leppänen. A Validation of Martin's Metric. Proceedings of 11th Symposium on Programming Languages and Software Tools and 7th Nordic Workshop on Model Driven Software Engineering, pages 87-101, Aug 2009.
Sami Mäkelä and Ville Leppänen. Client-Based Cohesion Metrics for Java Programs. Science of Computer Programming, 74(5-6):355-378, Mar 2009.
Sami Mäkelä and Ville Leppänen. Experimental Evaluation of Interpretations for Local Cohesion Metrics. Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practice, SERP'2009
Sami Mäkelä and Ville Leppänen. A Software Metric for Coherence of class Roles in Java Programs. In Proceedings of 5th ACM International Conference on Principles and Practice of Programming in Java, PPPJ'07, 2007, 10 pages.
Sami Mäkelä and Ville Leppänen. Client based Object-Oriented Cohesion Metrics. In Proceedings of 31st IEEE Annual International Computer Software & Applications Conference, COMPSAC'07, 2007, 6 pages.
Sami Mäkelä and Ville Leppänen. External Views on Class Cohesion. In Proceedings of International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies, CompSysTech'07, 2007, 6 pages.
Sami Mäkelä and Ville Leppänen. Observations on Lack of Cohesion Metrics. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies, CompSysTech'06, 2006, 6 pages.
Sami Mäkelä and Ville Leppänen. Taking Purpose of Class into Consideration in Cohesion Metrics. In Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium on Programming Languages and Software Tools, 2005, 14 pages.
Sami Mäkelä and Ville Leppänen. Japroch: A Tool for Checking Programming Style. In Proceedings of the 4th Finnish/Baltic Sea Conference on Computer Science Education, Koli Calling 2004, 4 pages.
Also 3 master's theses are done on this topic.