Essentials of Software Engineering, 4th Edition

CHAPTER 8: Design Characteristics and Metrics

OBJECTIVES

• Describe the characteristics of a good design.

• Understand legacy metrics that have been devised to measure complexity of design:

  • Halstead metrics

  • McCabe’s cyclomatic number

  • Henry-Kafura information flow

  • Card and Glass complexity measures

• Discuss cohesion attribute and program slices.

• Describe coupling attributes.

• Understand Chidamber-Kemerer metrics for object-oriented design.

• Analyze user-interface design concerns.

8.1 Characterizing Design

In Chapter 7 we discussed a number of designs and design techniques. Intuitively, we can talk about good designs and bad designs. We regularly use phrases such as “easy to understand,” “easy to change,” “low complexity,” or “easy to ...