Using Software Requirement Specification as Complexity Metric for Multi-Paradigm Programming Languages
Olabiyisi S.O. · 2013
-The existing complexity metrics being used are based on code and cognitive metrics. This study therefore proposed a complexity metric using Software Requirement Based Specification. The proposed approach identified complexity of software immediately after freezing the requirement in Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) process. In order to develop a metric, this research took the IEEE Software Requirement Specification (SRS) document as a basis. Proper analysis of each and every component of SRS document of complexity metrics was considered. Functional and Nonfunctional requirements were also employed to develop an improved complexity metric. In order to validate the proposed metric, it was then applied on ten (10) different sorting algorithms written in C++ language and further compared with other established code based metrics. The metric compares well with other established complexity metrics and can be used to estimate complexity of proposed software much before the actual implementation of design thus saving cost, time and manpower wastage. Keywords-Design Constraints Imposed Functional Requirement, Input and Output Complexity, Interface Complexity, Non Functional Requirement, Requirement Base Complexity, System Feature Complexity, User / Location Complexity.