Software Metrics and Measurements

Abstract

In the past few years, a large number of e-government and e-commerce systems have been developed, thus resulting to a constantly increasing number of software developers involved in software development for such systems. To ensure the production of high quality e-government and e-commerce systems, it is important for developers to collect and analyze measurable data that guide estimation, decision making, and assessment. It is common sense that one can control and manage better what he is able to measure. Although there are major differences between e-commerce and e-government (e.g., access, structure and accountability; Jorgenson & Cable, 2002) there are no significant differences in terms of software metrics that can be applied to both. Metrics are used in e-government and e-commerce software development to measure various factors related to software quality and can be classified as product metrics, process metrics and recourse metrics. Product metrics are also called software metrics. These are metrics that are directly related to the product itself, such as code statements, delivered executables, manuals, and strive to measure product quality, or attributes of the product that can be related to product quality. Process metrics focus on the process of software development and measure process characteristics, aiming to detect problems or to push forward successful practices. Resource metrics are related to the resources required for software development and their performance. This article focuses on product metrics and on how such metrics can aid in design, prediction and assessment of the final product quality, provide data used for decision making, cost and effort estimation, fault prevention, testing time reduction, and, consequently, aid in producing better software for e-government and e-commerce sys