OUTPUT MEASUREMENT METRICS IN AN OBJECT-ORIENTED COMPUTER AIDED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (CASE) ENVIRONMENT: CRITIQUE, EVALUATION AND PROPOSAL

Abstract

Output measurement metrics for the software development process need to be re-examined to determine their performance in the new, radically changed CASE development environment. This paper critiques and empirically evaluates several approaches to the measurement of outputs from the CASE process. The primary metric evaluated is the function points method developed by Albrecht. A second metric tested is a short-form variation of function points that is easier and quicker to calculate. We also propose a new output metric called object points and a related short-form, which are specialized for output measurement in object-oriented CASE environments that include a central object repository. These metrics are proposed as more intuitive and lower cost approaches to measuring the CASE outputs. Our preliminary results show that these metrics have the potential to yield as accurate, if not better, estimates than function points-based measures.