Complexity measures for object-oriented conceptual models of an application domain

Geert Poels'" Guido Dedene Department of Applied Economic Sciences Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Naamsestraat 69, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium tel: +3216326891 fax: +32 16326732 e-mail: {geert.poels.guido.dedene}@econ.kuleuven.ac.be According to Norman Fenton few work has been done on measuring the complexity of the problems underlying software development. Nonetheless, it is believed that this attribute has a significant impact on software quality and development effort. A substantial portion of the underlying problems are captured in the conceptual model of the application domain. Based on previous work on conceptual modelling of application domains, the attribute 'complexity of a conceptual model' is formally defined in this paper using elementary concepts from Measure Theory. Moreover, a number of complexity measures are defined and validated against this complexity definition. It is argued and demonstrated that these problem domain measures are part of a solution to the problem outlined by Norman Fenton.

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