The Impact of Complexity on Software Design Quality and Costs: An Exploratory Empirical Analysis of Open Source Applications

摘要: It is well known that complexity affects software development and maintenance costs. In the Open Source context, sharing of effort among developers a fundamental tenet, which can be thought as driver to reduce impact on However, structural property code, not quantitatively accounted for in traditional cost models. This paper introduces concept functional complexity, weights well-established McCabe's cyclomatic metric number interactive elements an application provides users. Such used analyze how costs are affected by complexity. Traditional models, like CoCoMo, do take into account estimating means accurate indicators. contrast, results show higher associated with lower design quality and, hence, Consequently, suggest reliable estimation should based precise evaluation Analyses quality, data collected 59 applications (corresponding 906 versions) selected from SourceForge.net repository.