A Pragmatic Analysis Model for Software Reuse

Software reuse is probably the most elusive promise of object oriented programming. Under the current economic constraints achieving high quality software under severe cost constraints is fundamental for the success of software companies, and reuse is a very good way of achieving it. However, achieving effective reuse requires a significant up-front effort, strict discipline and careful planning while its results are difficult to measure. The lack of clear measurements often make it impossible for a company to measure the degree of success in applying reuse and to estimate the organizational gains from applying systematic software reuse. The current paper presents an integrated measurement model that allows practitioners to apply familiar project management techniques for measuring software reuse and to include software reuse metrics in the analysis of project performance indicators.