Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Re: Determining C Complexity
Message-ID: <1990Aug4.214507.28734@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1050@ashton.UUCP> <7990015@hpopd.HP.COM>
Date: Sat, 4 Aug 90 21:45:07 GMT

In article <7990015@hpopd.HP.COM> daves@hpopd.HP.COM (Dave Straker) writes:
>"You can't control what you can't measure"

So what, precisely, are code metrics measuring?

Not code quality, as seen by the customers.  They care about whether it
works, whether it's fast and small, and whether it will continue to work
after maintenance.

The connection between code metrics and any of these things is, at best,
unverified conjecture.

If you want to measure bugs, performance, and maintenance ease, there are
better metrics.  Like number of bugs, timing figures, and maintenance
man-hours.  Admittedly, there are a lot of variables involved, and it is
hard work to measure these things well.  Running a program to determine
the cyclomatic complexity of the code is much easier.  But the customers
don't *care* about the cyclomatic complexity!

Measure the things you care about, and forget the silly code metrics.
-- 
The 486 is to a modern CPU as a Jules  | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
Verne reprint is to a modern SF novel. |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry