Using the ripple effect to measure software quality
Haider Bilal, Sue Black · 2005
Software metrics provide us with information regarding the quality of software. The ripple effect metric shows what impact changes to software will have on the rest of the system. It can be used during software maintenance to keep the system at an optimum level of quality, avoiding degradation of the system or during development to ensure that the quality of the system is maintained throughout the development process. The computation of ripple effect is based on the effect that a change to a single variable will have on the rest of a program; it determines the scope of the change and provides a measure of the program's complexity. The original algorithm used to compute ripple effect has been reformulated mainly to provide clarity in the operations involved. The reformulation involved some approximation that was shown not to affect the measures produced. The reformulated, approximated algorithm has been implemented as the software tool REST (Ripple Effect and Stability Tool). This paper describes the ripple effect measure and shows how it can be used to maintain system quality throughout the software lifecycle.