An analytical evaluation of static coupling measures for domain object classes
Geert Poels · 1998
We present a set of static coupling measures for domain object classes. Although these measures do not directly measure the external quality of an OO software system, they might be useful as early indicators of high-risk components of the system. In this paper we focus on the analytical evaluation of the measures using a well-known set of generic coupling properties. 1. INTRODUCTION Whereas software users are primarily interested in quality attributes such as for instance defined in the ISO 9126 standard (i.e., functionality, reliability, efficiency, usability, maintainability, portability), these are external software product attributes that can only be evaluated with respect to how the software product relates to its environment. During software development software products are mostly isolated from the user environment. Therefore, most software quality models are based on the `axiom' of software engineering [10, p. 151]: internal structure Þ external quality Internal structure attr...