Abstract
This paper examines information flow metrics: a subset of a potentially valuable class of system architecture measures. Theoretical analysis of the underlying model reveals a number of anomalies which translate into poor performance, as revealed by a large empirical study. Attention to these theoretical deficiencies results in a marked improvement in performance. There are two themes to this paper. The first theme—a minor one—involves a critique and evaluation of one particular system design metric. The second theme—a major one—entails a critique of the metric derivation process adopted by the vast majority of the researchers in this field.
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Ince, D.C., Shepperd, M.J. (1989). An empirical and theoretical analysis of an information flow-based system design metric. In: Ghezzi, C., McDermid, J.A. (eds) ESEC '89. ESEC 1989. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 387. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-51635-2_34
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-51635-2_34
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