An Analysis of the Design and Definitions of Halstead’s Metrics

This paper is concerned with a three-phased method for developing and maintaining descriptive and predictive software measurement models and, with the integration of such a method into a software development organization. 1. Introduction Measures are used within software development organizations for a variety of reasons [1]. As components of measurement plans, measures are adopted to describe, understand, assess, compare, plan, monitor and evaluate software processes, products, and resources. Measures are key elements of any quality improvement method. With respect to measurement in other industrial and scientific settings, measuring of software is a problem in itself. Ranging from basic aspects, such as size, complexity, and cost, to more complex ones, such as quality, many software attributes are still poorly understood and often result into fuzzy defined, not reusable measures. Several basic issues that concern software measurement were already investigated. Most of the software...

Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2008

The present work provides a summary of the state of art in software measures by means of a systematic review on the current literature. Nowadays, many companies need to answer the following questions: How to measure?, When to measure and What to measure?. There have been a lot of efforts made to attempt to answer these questions, and this has resulted in a large amount of data what is sometimes confusing and unclear information. This needs to be properly processed and classified in order to provide a better overview of the current situation. We have used a Measurement Software Ontology to classify and put the amount of data in this field in order. We have also analyzed the results of the systematic review, to show the trends in the software measurement field and the software process on which the measurement efforts have focused. It has allowed us to discover what parts of the process are not supported enough by measurements, to thus motivate future research in those areas.

North Carolina State University Department of Computer Science, Raleigh, NC, 2010

Context: Researchers proposing a new metric have the burden of proof to demonstrate to the research community that the metric is acceptable in its intended use. This burden of proof is provided through the multi-faceted, scientific, and objective process of software metrics validation. Over the last 40 years, however, researchers have debated what constitutes a "valid" metric. Aim: The debate over what constitutes a "valid" metric centers on software metrics validation criteria. The objective of this paper is to guide researchers in making sound contributions to the field of software engineering metrics by providing a practical summary of the metrics validation criteria found in the academic literature. Method: We conducted a systematic literature review that began with 2,288 papers and ultimately focused on 20 papers. After extracting 47 unique validation criteria from these 20 papers, we performed a comparative analysis to explore the relationships amongst the criteria. Results: Our 47 validation criteria represent a diverse view of what constitutes a valid metric. We categorized each validation criterion into three categories and nine sub-categories. We present an analysis of the conflicts, common themes, and philosophical motivations behind the validation criteria. Conclusions: Although the 47 validation criteria are not conflict-free, the diversity of motivations and philosophies behind the validation criteria indicates that metrics validation is complex. We have determined in this paper that, rather than arbitrarily choosing validation criteria for each metric, researchers should choose criteria that confirm that the metric is appropriate for its intended use. Researchers proposing new metrics should consider the applicability of the validation criteria in terms of our categorization and analysis.

Information & Software Technology, 2006

Although software measurement plays an increasingly important role in Software Engineering, there is no consensus yet on many of the concepts and terminology used in this field. Even worse, vocabulary conflicts and inconsistencies can be frequently found amongst the many sources and references commonly used by software measurement researchers and practitioners. This article presents an analysis of the current situation, and provides a comparison framework that can be used to identify and address the discrepancies, gaps, and terminology conflicts that current software measurement proposals present. A basic software measurement ontology is introduced, that aims at contributing to the harmonization of the different software measurement proposals and standards, by providing a coherent set of common concepts used in software measurement. The ontology is also aligned with the metrology vocabulary used in other more mature measurement engineering disciplines. q

2021

BARCELOS, MR.R.S.; GOMES, C.F.S.; SANSEVERINO, A.M.; SANTOS, M. Literature review on software metrics and a New Proposal. Perspectivas Online: Exatas & Engenharias, v. 11, n. 32, p. 3359, 2021. The use of metrics is important in software development activities as they make it possible to check quality, identify failures and other benefits. The objective of this paper is to propose a new software metric based on a bibliometric study and a literature review on software metrics. The bibliometric research was carried out in the Scopus and Web of Science databases to identify the distribution of articles by year of publication, the main authors, affiliation, country, the most common languages, the types of documents, journals with more publications, areas of knowledge, and the keyword clusters. Twenty-three articles were subsequently selected for reading to compose the literature review. The results of the bibliometric research show that (i) there is no defined core of research; (ii) the...

Measurement data collection, analysis, and utilisation within projects and organisation form a basis to monitor and improve software development. Utilisation of measurement data and the sharing of experiences throughout organisation have too often been overlooked by the industry. This is not due to lack of appreciation for data collection, analysis, and use, but rather to the fact that good practices, methods and tools for a more comprehensive approach have not been available. There are several good existing frameworks for software measurement, but they are often process improvement oriented and therefore do not consider the establishment of continuous long lasting measurements throughout the organisation and projects. Thus, when the improvement goals have been met, measurements are seldom continued, and valuable effort and time used to build measurement infrastructure and culture are not fully utilised. Furthermore, organisations and projects typically collect large amounts of data...

Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Networking and Parallel/Distributed Computing, 2006

This paper presents a three-layer model that captures the fundamentals of software metrics within a unifying framework. The model readily lends itself for use in both instructional and practitioner environments.

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 1994

Abstruct-Software measurement, like measurement in any other discipline, must adhere to the science of measurement if it is to gain widespread acceptance and validity. The observation of some very simple, but fundamental, principles of measurement can have an extremely beneficial effect on the subject. Measurement theory is used to highlight both weaknesses and strengths of software metrics work, including work on metrics validation. We identify a problem with the well-known Weyuker properties, but also show that a criticism of these properties by Cherniavsky and Smith is invalid. We show that the search for general software complexity measures is doomed to failure. However, the theory does help us to define and validate measures of specific complexity attributes. Above all, we are able to view software measurement in a very wide perspective, rationalising and relating its many diverse activities.

Fifth International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations (itng 2008), 2008

The role of metrics in software quality is well recognized. However, software metrics are yet to be standardized and integrated into development practices across software industry. While process, project, and product metrics share a common goal of contributing to software quality and reliability, utilization of metrics has been at minimum. This work is an effort to bring more attention to software metrics. It examines the practices of metrics in software industry and the experiences of some organizations that have developed, promoted, and utilized variety of software metrics. As various types of metrics are being developed and used, these experiences show evidence of benefits and improvements in quality and reliability.