Investigation of Metrics for Object-Oriented Design Logical Stability

Abstract

As changes are made to an object-oriented design, its structure and/or behavior may be affected. Modifications made to one class can have ripple effects on other classes in the design. The stability of an object-oriented design indicates its resistance to interclass propagation of changes that the design would have when it is modified. There are two aspects of design stability: logical stability and performance stability. Logical stability is concerned with design structure, whereas performance stability is concerned with design behavior. In this study, the object-oriented design metrics proposed by Chidamber and Kemerer were adopted as candidate indicators of the logical stability of object-oriented designs. The objective was to investigate whether or not there are correlations between these metrics and the logical stability of classes. The experimental results indicated that WMC, DIT, CBO, RFC, and LCOM metrics are negatively correlated with the logical stability of classes. However, no correlation was found between NOC metric and the logical stability of classes.