Measures for object-event interactions

A suite of measures is presented that addresses two problem areas within contemporary object-oriented software measurement theory and practice, i.e. the lack of OOA measures and the lack of measures for behavioural aspects of software. Our suite of measures is based on a formally defined model of object-event interaction, called the object-event association matrix. Generally, the objects in a domain or system are affected by the occurrence of real-world or information system events. A framework for measurement is presented that expresses and measures attributes (features, properties, characteristics) of objects, related to the data, function and dynamic behaviour dimensions of software, in terms of object-event interactions. This framework allows for early measurement because it applies to OOA, CBSE, and domain analysis methods that support the notion of events, or that support similar dynamic concepts (use cases, scenarios, actions) that can be transformed into events