Title :
An approach to predict software maintenance cost based on ripple complexity
Author :
Hirota, Toyohiko ; Tohki, Masaharu ; Overstreet, C. Michael ; Hashimoto, Masaaki ; Cherinka, Robert
Author_Institution :
Kyushu Inst. of Technol., Iizuka, Japan
Abstract :
Almost half of a software maintainer´s time is spent trying to understand programs. This means that software maintenance cost prediction depends on software understandability. We have proposed ripple complexity as a means to predict program understandability. This paper describes an experiment to prove the usefulness of ripple complexity. The result of this experiment has shown that ripple complexity is more closely related to program understandability than lines of source code, cyclomatic complexity and function point analysis
Keywords :
reverse engineering; software cost estimation; software maintenance; software metrics; cyclomatic complexity; function point analysis; program understanding; ripple analysis; ripple complexity; software maintenance cost prediction; software understandability; source code lines; Algorithm design and analysis; Costs; Information analysis; Maintenance engineering; Reverse engineering; Software engineering; Software maintenance; Software systems; Testing; Turning;
Conference_Titel :
Software Engineering Conference, 1994. Proceedings., 1994 First Asia-Pacific
Conference_Location :
Tokyo
Print_ISBN :
0-8186-6960-8
DOI :
10.1109/APSEC.1994.465236
