Object-Oriented Software Metrics for Predicting Reusability and Estimating Size

As object-oriented software development methods come into more widespread use, basic questions of software quality assurance must be reconsidered. We will highlight efforts now underway at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to both assess the quality of software systems developed using object oriented technology and develop guidelines for future development of such systems. The current focus is on design and code reusability., and system size estimation. A number of metrics are proposed and two software systems measured and analyzed. The preliminary results reported here should be useful to software development and quality assurance personnel working in C++ implementation environment.