A survey of software metrics
Dennis Kafura · 1985
This paper is a brief review of current research in software metrics.Such metrics are quantitative measures of attributes relating to the quality of a software system.The attributes of interest in this paper are factors of the software product which are important to individuals who are constructing or maintaining a software system.Th e metrics reviewed are organized into three classes: measures of software structure which can be taken early in the software life-cycle, measures of code features which can be taken after the implementation phase, and metrics which combine structural and code factors in a single metric.Results of several validation experiments involving production software systems will be given.These validations show that several software metrics have significant relationships to quality attributes, that the metrics measure different factors and should be used together, and that more than one project resource needs to be taken into account in attempting to understand and control the construction of realistic software systems.