Early metrics for object oriented designs

To produce high quality object-oriented systems, a strong emphasis on the development process is necessary. This implies two implicit and complementary goals. First, to ensure a full control over the whole process, enabling accurate cost and delay estimation, resource efficient management, and a better overall understanding. Second, to improve quality all along the system lifecycle at development and maintenance stage. On the client side, a steady control over the development process implies a better detection and elimination of faults, raising the viability and usability of the system. This paper introduces a realistic example of metrics integration in the development process of object-oriented software. By addressing early stages of the design (ie. class diagram), we can anticipate design-level errors or warnings thus enabling a reduction of immediate and further costs and problems. Metrics used are issued from state of the art object-oriented research, and integrated in the widespread unified process of software development.