Metrics for a categorical life cycle model

There has, in recent years, been an increasing interest in software metrics that are language independent. For example, transformation independent metrics; metrics which survive translation from one implementation language into another. Another example of the study of transformation independence is the effect of transformation on metrics for a formal algebraic specification which was transformed into an implementation in an imperative language. These examples of work on software metrics which are transformation independent are just two pieces in a jigsaw puzzle of metrics for the software life cycle where metrics for one life cycle element will appear unchanged in other, future life cycle elements thus allowing prediction of quantities of interest at future points in the life cycle, as well as properties of the life cycle itself