Cyclomatic Complexity: theme and variations

Focussing on the "McCabe family" of measures for the decision/logic structure of a program, leads to an evaluation of extensions to modularization, nesting and, potentially, to object-oriented program structures. A comparison of rated, operating and essential complexities of programs suggests two new metrics: 'inessential complexity" as a measure of unstructuredness and "product complexity" as a potential objective measure of structural complexity. Finally, nesting and abstraction levels are considered, especially as to how metrics from the "McCabe family" might be applied in an object-oriented systems development environment.