Structural information as a quality metric in software systems organization

Proposes a metric for expressing the entropy of a software system and for assessing the quality of its organization from the perspective of impact analysis. The metric is called “structural information” and is based on a model dependency descriptor. The metric is characterized by its independence from the method of building the system and the architectural styles which represent it at the various levels of abstraction. It takes into account both the structure of the components at all levels of abstraction and the structure derived from the links between the different levels of abstraction. The use of this metric makes it possible to monitor changes in the quality levels of the system during its life-cycle and to determine which level of documentation is causing the degradation of the system. This enables adopting timely measures to counter any drop in the quality of a system due to poorly-performed maintenance. In addition, the metric can serve to check that perfective maintenance objectives are attained