Comments, with reply, on ´Predicting source-code complexity at the design state´ by S. Henry and C. Selig

The commenter objects to the claim made by the authors of the above-mentioned article (see ibid., vol.7, no.2, p.36-44, 1990) that Halstead´s E (effort) metric has been extensively validated and to a lack of precise definition for units of ´elementary mental discrimination.´ With regard to the first point, S. Henry points out that since E seems to give an indication of error-prone software, it must be measuring some aspect of the source code, and that many studies have shown high correlations between effort and lines of code and McCabe´s cyclomatic complexity. She agrees with the commenter´s second point.<>