Simplified Coupling Metrics for Object-Oriented Software

Coupling in software has been linked with maintainability and existing metrics are used as predictors of external software quality attributes such as fault-proneness, impact analysis, ripple effects of changes, changeability, etc. Many coupling measures for object-oriented (OO) software have been proposed, each of them capturing specific dimensions of coupling. In this paper, we describe and evaluate some recently innovated coupling metrics for object-oriented (OO) design. We present an investigation into the run-time behavior of objects in Java programs, using specially adapted coupling metrics. These new metrics seek to quantify coupling at different layers of granularity that is at class-class and object-class level. For each measure, we indicate the type of coupling it uses what factors determine the strength of coupling, if it is an import or export coupling measure how indirect coupling is accounted for and how inheritance is dealt. Keywords— metrics, coupling, object-oriented, measurement,