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OO Design Metrics

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Robert Martin

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Aug 23, 1994, 10:58:38 AM8/23/94
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I submit this paper for your review and enjoyment. It concerns the
ability to measure certain aspects of OO design quality. I have
cross posted this to comp.object and comp.lang.c++.

OO Design Quality Metrics


An Analysis of Dependencies


By Robert Martin

August 14, 1994

Abstract


This paper describes a set of metrics that can be used to measure the
quality of an object-oriented design in terms of the interdependence
between the subsystems of that design. Designs which are highly
interdependent tend to be rigid, unreusable and hard to maintain.
Yet interdependence is necessary if the subsystems of the design are
to collaborate. Thus, some forms of dependency must be desirable,
and other forms must be undesirable. This paper proposes a design
pattern in which all the dependencies are of the desirable form.
Finally, this paper describes a set of metrics that measure the
conformance of a design to the desirable pattern.


Introduction

What is it about OO that makes designs more robust, more maintainable,
and more reusable? This is a poignant question since there have been
many recent examples where applications designed with so-called OO
methods have turned out not to fulfill those claims. Are these
qualities of robustness, maintainability and reusability intrinsic to
OOD? If so, why donÕt all applications designed with OOD have
them? If not, then what other characteristics does a object-oriented
design require in order to have these desirable qualities?

This paper presents the case that simply using objects to model an
application is insufficient to gain robust, maintainable and reusable
designs. That there are other attributes of a design that are
required. That these attributes are based upon a pattern of
interdependencies between the subsystems of the design that support
communications within the design, isolate reusable elements from
non-reusable elements, and block the propagation of change due to
maintenance.

Moreover, this paper presents a set of metrics that can be easily
applied to a design, and that measures the conformance of that design
to the desired pattern of dependencies. These metrics are "Design
Quality" metrics. They provide information to the designers
regarding the ability of their design to survive change, or to be
reused.

Dependency

What is it that makes a design rigid, fragile and difficult to reuse.
It is the interdependence of the subsystems within that design. A
design is rigid if it cannot be easily changed. Such rigidity is due
to the fact that a single change to heavily interdependent software
begins a cascade of changes in dependent modules. When the extent of
that cascade of change cannot be predicted by the designers or
maintainers the impact of the change cannot be estimated. This makes
the cost of the change impossible to estimate. Managers, faced with
such unpredictability, become reluctant to authorize changes. Thus
the design becomes rigid.

Fragility is the tendency of a program to break in many places when a
single change is made. Often the new problems are in areas that have
no conceptual relationship with the area that was changed. Such
fragility greatly decreases the credibility of the design and
maintenance organization. Users and managers are unable to predict
the quality of their product. Simple changes to one part of the
application lead to failures in other parts that appear to be
completely unrelated. Fixing those problems leads to even more
problems, and the maintenance process begins to resemble a dog chasing
its tail.

A design is difficult to reuse when the desirable parts of the design
are highly dependent upon other details which are not desired.
Designers tasked with investigating the design to see if it can be
reused in a different application may be impressed with how well the
design would do in the new application. However if the design is
highly interdependent, then those designers will also be daunted by
the amount of work necessary to separate the desirable portion of the
design from the other portions of the design that are undesirable. In
most cases, such designs are not reused because the cost of the
separation is deemed to be higher than the cost of redevelopment of
the design.

Example: the "Copy" program.

A simple example may help to make this point. Consider a simple
program which is charged with the task of copying characters typed on
a keyboard to a printer. Assume, furthermore, that the implementation
platform does not have an operating system that supports device
independence. then we might conceive of a structure for this program
that looks like this:

+----------------+
| Copy |
+----------------+
/ \
/ \
+-----------------+ +-----------------+
| Keyboard Reader | | Printer Writer |
+-----------------+ +-----------------+

There are three modules. The "Copy" module calls the other two. One
can easily imagine a loop within the "Copy" module. The body of that
loop calls the "Read Keyboard" module to fetch a character from the
keyboard, it then sends that character to the "Write Printer" module
which prints the character.

The two low level modules are nicely reusable. They can be used in
many other programs to gain access to the keyboard and the printer.
This is the same kind of reusability that we gain from subroutine
libraries.

However the "Copy" module is not reusable in any context which does
not involve a keyboard or a printer. This is a shame since the
intelligence of the system is maintained in this module. It is the
"Copy" module that encapsulates a very interesting policy that we
would like to reuse.

For example, consider a new program that copies keyboard characters to
a disk file. Certainly we would like to reuse the "Copy" module since
it encapsulates the high level policy that we need. i.e. it knows how
to copy characters from a source to a sink. Unfortunately, the "Copy"
module is dependent upon the "Write Printer" module, and so cannot be
reused in the new context.

We could certainly modify the "Copy" module to give it the new
desired functionality. We could add an 'if' statement to its
policy and have it select between the "Write Printer" module and the
"Write Disk" module depending upon some kind of flag. However this
adds new interdependencies to the system. As time goes on, and more
and more devices must participate in the copy program, the "Copy"
module will be littered with if/else statements and will be dependent
upon many lower level modules. It will eventually become rigid and
fragile.

Inverting Dependencies with OOD

One way to characterize the problem above is to notice that the module
that contains the high level policy, i.e. the "Copy" module, is
dependent upon its details. If we could find a way to make this
module independent of the details that it controls, then we could
reuse it freely. We could produce other programs which used this
module to copy characters from any input device to any output device.
OOD gives us a mechanisms for performing this dependency inversion.

Consider the following simple class diagram:

[diagram shows copy class containing two abstract classes named "Reader"
and "Writer". Derived from "Reader" is "Keyboard Reader" and derived
from "Writer" is "Printer Writer".]

Here we have a "Copy" class which contains an abstract "Reader" class
and an abstract "Writer" class. One can easily imagine a loop within
the "Copy" class which gets characters from its "Reader" and sends
them to its "Writer". Yet this "Copy" class does not depend upon the
"Keyboard Reader" nor the "Printer Writer" at all. Thus the
dependencies have been inverted. Now the "Copy" class depends upon
abstractions, and the detailed readers and writers depend upon the
same abstractions.

Now we can reuse the "Copy" class, independently of the "Keyboard
Reader" and the "Printer Writer". We can invent new kinds of "Reader"
and "Writer" derivatives which we can supply to the "Copy" class.
Moreover, no matter how many kinds of "Readers" and "Writers" are
created, "Copy" will depend upon none of them. There will be no
interdependencies to make the program fragile or rigid.

Good Dependencies

What makes the OO version of the copy program robust, maintainable and
reusable? It is its lack of interdependencies. Yet it does have some
dependencies; and those dependencies do not interfere with those
desirable qualities. Why not? Because the targets of those
dependencies are extremely stable; i.e. they are unlikely to change.

Consider the nature of the "Reader" and "Writer" classes. In C++ they
could be represented as follows:

class Writer {public: virtual void Write(char) = 0;};
class Reader {public: virtual char Read() = 0;};

These two classes are very unlikely to change. What forces exist that
would cause them to change? Certainly we could imagine some if we
stretched our thinking a bit. But in the normal course of events,
these classes are extremely stable.

Thus, there are very few forces that could cause "Copy" to be changed.
"Copy" is an example of the "Open/Closed" principle at work. "Copy"
is open to be extended since we can create new versions of "Readers"
and "Writers" for it to drive. Yet "Copy" is closed for modification
since we do not have to modify it to achieve those extensions.

Thus, we can say that a "Good Dependency" is a dependency upon
something that is very stable. The more stable the target of the
dependency, the more "Good" the dependency is. By the same token a
"Bad Dependency" is a dependency upon something that is instable. The
more instable the target of the dependency is, the more "Bad" the
dependency is.

Stability

How does one achieve stability? Why, for example, are "Reader" and
"Writer" so stable? Consider again the forces that could make them
change. They depend upon nothing at all, so a change from a dependee
cannot ripple up to them and cause them to change. I call this
characteristic "Independence". Independent classes are classes which
do not depend upon anything else.

Another reason that "Reader" and "Writer" are stable is that they are
depended upon by many other classes. "Copy", "KeyboardReader" and
"KeyboardWriter" among them. In fact, the more varieties of "Reader"
and "Writer" exist, the more dependents these classes have. The more
dependents they have, the harder it is to make changes to them. If we
were to change "Reader" or "Writer" we would have to change all the
other classes that depended upon them. Thus, there is a great deal of
force preventing us from changing these classes, and enhancing their
stability.

I call classes that are heavily depended upon, "Responsible".
Responsible classes tend to be stable because any change has a large
impact.

The most stable classes of all, are classes that are both Independent
and Responsible. Such classes have no reason to change, and lots of
reasons not to change.

Class Categories: the granule of Reuse and Release

It is seldom that a class can be reused in isolation. "Copy" provides
a good example. It must be reused with the abstract "Reader" and
"Writer" classes. It is generally true that a class has a set of
collaborating classes from which it cannot eassily be separated. In
order to reuse such classes, one must reuse the entire group. Such a
group of classes is highly cohesive, and Booch calls them a "Class
Category".

A Class Category (hereinafter referred to as simply a category) is a
group of highly cohesive classes that obey the following three rules:

1. The classes within a category are closed together against any
force of change. This means that if one class must change,
all of the classes within the category are likely to change.
If any of the classes are open to a certain kind of change,
they are all open to that kind of change.

2. The classes within a category are reused together. They are
strongly interdependent and cannot be separated from each
other. Thus if any attempt is made to reuse one class within
the category, all the other classes must be reused with it.

3. The classes within a category share some common function or
achieve some common goal.

These three rules are listed in order of their importance. Rule 3 can
be sacrificed for rule 2 which can, in turn, be sacrificed for rule 1.

If categories are to be reused, they must also be released and given
release numbers. If this were not the case, reusers would not be able
to rely upon the stability of the reused categories since the authors
might change it at any time. Thus the authors must provide releases
of their categories and identify them with release numbers so that
reusers can be assured that they can have access to versions of the
category that will not be changed.

The dependencies between categories are the ones we want to manage.

Since categories are both the granule of release and reuse, it stands
to reason that the dependencies that we wish to manage are the
dependencies between categories rather than the dependencies within
categories. After all, within a category, classes are expected to be
highly interdependent. Since all the classes within a category are
reused at the same time, and since all classes in a category are
closed against the same kind of changes, the interdependence between
them cannot do much harm.

Thus, we can move our discussion of dependency up a level, and discuss
the "Independence", "Responsibility" and "Stability" of categories
instead of classes. The categories with the highest stability are
categories which are both independent and highly responsible. And
dependencies upon stable categories are "good" dependencies.

Dependency Metrics

The responsibility, independence and stability of a category can be
measured by counting the dependencies that interact with that
category. Three metrics have been identified:


Ca : Afferent Couplings : The number of classes outside this category
that depend upon classes within this category.

Ce : Efferent Couplings : The number of classes inside this category
that depend upon classes outside this categories.

I : Instability : (Ce / (Ca+Ce)) : This metric has the range [0,1].
I=0 indicates a maximally stable category. I=1 indicates a
maximally instable category.

Not all categories should be stable

If all the categories in a system were maximally stable, the system
would be unchangeable. In fact, we want portions of the design to be
flexible enough to withstand significant amount of change. How can a
category which is maximally stable (I=0) be flexible enough to
withstand change? The answer is to be found in the "Open/Closed"
principle. This principle tells us that it is possible and desirable
to create classes that are flexible enough to be extended without
requiring modification. What kind of classes conform to this
principle? Abstract classes.

Consider the "Copy" program again. The "Reader" and "Writer" classes
are abstract classes. They are highly stable since they depend upon
nothing and are depended upon by "Copy" and all their derivatives.
Yet, "Reader" and "Writer" can be extended, without modification, to
deal with many different kinds of I/O devices.

Thus, if a category is to be stable, it should also consist of
abstract classes so that it can be extended. Stable categories that
are extensible are flexible and do not constrain the design.

If stable categories should be highly abstract, one might infer that
instable categories should be highly concrete. In fact, this stands
to reason. An abstract category must have dependents since there must
be classes, outside the abstract category, that inherit from it and
implement the missing pure interfaces. However, we do not want to
encourage dependencies upon instable categories. Thus, instable
categories should not be abstract, they should be concrete.

We can define a metric which measures the "abstractness" of a category
as follows:

A : Abstractness : (# abstract classes in category / total # of
classes in category). This metric range is [0,1]. 0 means
concrete and 1 means completely abstract.

The "Main Sequence"

We are now in a position to define the relationship between stability
(I) and abstractness (A). We can create a graph with A on the
vertical axis and I on the horizontal axis. If we plot the two "good"
kinds of categories on this graph, we will find the categories that
are maximally stable and abstract at the upper left at (0,1). The
categories that are maximally instable and concrete are at the lower
right at (1,0).

But not all categories can fall into one of these two positions.
Categories have degrees of abstraction and stability. For example, it
is very common that one abstract class derives from another abstract
class. The derivative is an abstraction that has a dependency. Thus,
though it is maximally abstract, it will not be maximally stable. Its
dependency will decrease its stability.

Consider a category with A=0 and I=0. This is a highly stable and
concrete category. Such a category is not desirable because it is
rigid. It cannot be extended because it is not abstract. And it is
very difficult to change because of its stability.

Consider a category with A=1 and I=1. This category is also
undesirable (perhaps impossible) because it is maximally abstract and
yet has no dependents. It, too, is rigid because the abstractions are
impossible to extend.

But what about a category with A=.5 and I=.5? This category is
partially extensible because it is partially abstract. Moreover, it
is partially stable so that the extensions are not subject to maximal
instability. Such a category seems "balanced". Its stability is in
balance with its abstractness.

Consider again the A-I graph (below). We can draw a line from (0,1)
to (1,0). This line represents categories whose abstractness is
"balanced" with stability. Because of its similarity to a graph used
in astronomy, I call this line the "Main Sequence".

|
|
1= (0,1)
|\
| \
Abstractness| \ The
| \ Main
| \ Sequence
| \
| \
| \ (1,0)
+--------:--
1
Instability


A category that sits on the main sequence is not "too abstract" for
its stability, nor is "too instable" for its abstractness. It has the
"right" number of concrete and abstract classes in proportion to its
efferent and afferent dependencies. Clearly, the most desirable
positions for a category to hold are at one of the two endpoints of
the main sequence. However, in my experience only about half the
categories in a project can have such ideal characteristics. Those
other categories have the best characteristics if they are on or close
to the main sequence.

Distance from the Main Sequence

This leads us to our last metric. If it is desirable for categories
to be on or close to the main sequence, we can create a metric which
measures how far away a category is from this ideal.

D : Distance : |(A+I-1)/root2| : The perpendicular distance of a
category from the main sequence. This metric ranges from
[0,~0.707]. (One can normalize this metric to range between [0,1]
by using the simpler form |(A+I-1)|. I call this metric Dn).

Given this metric, a design can be analyzed for its overall
conformance to the main sequence. The D metric for each category can
be calculated. Any category that has a D value that is not near zero
can be reexamined and restructured. In fact, this kind of analysis
have been a great aid to the author in helping to define categories
that are more reusable, and less sensitive to change.

Statistical analysis of a design is also possible. One can calculate
the mean and variance of all the D metrics within a design. One would
expect a conformant design to have a mean and variance which were
close to zero. The variance can be used to establish "control limits"
which can identify categories that are "exceptional" in comparison to
all the others.

Conclusion and Caveat

The metrics described in this paper measure the conformance of a
design to a pattern of dependency and abstraction which the author
feels is a "good" pattern. Experience has shown that certain
dependencies are good and others are bad. This pattern reflects that
experience. However, a metric is not a god; it is merely a
measurement against an arbitrary standard. It is certainly possible
that the standard chosen in this paper is appropriate only for certain
applications and is not appropriate for others. It may also be that
there are far better metrics that can be used to measure the quality
of a design.

Thus, I would deeply regret it if anybody suddenly decided that all
their designs must unconditionally be conformant to "The Martin
Metrics". I hope that designers will experiment with them, find out
what is good and what is bad about them, and then communicate their
findings to the rest of us.


--
Robert Martin | Design Consulting | Training courses offered:
Object Mentor Assoc.| rma...@rcmcon.com | Object Oriented Analysis
2080 Cranbrook Rd. | Tel: (708) 918-1004 | Object Oriented Design
Green Oaks IL 60048 | Fax: (708) 918-1023 | C++

Ellster

unread,
Aug 27, 1994, 2:58:16 PM8/27/94
to
In <1994Aug23....@rcmcon.com> rma...@rcmcon.com writes:

> I submit this paper for your review and enjoyment. It concerns the
> ability to measure certain aspects of OO design quality. I have
> cross posted this to comp.object and comp.lang.c++.
>

It was enjoyable for me because the metric seems to be a new and useful
tool. The analysis of dependency as it relates to design also seems to be
on the mark.

>
>
> OO Design Quality Metrics
>
>
> An Analysis of Dependencies
>
>
> By Robert Martin
>
> August 14, 1994
>
>
>
> Abstract
>
>
> This paper describes a set of metrics that can be used to measure the
> quality of an object-oriented design in terms of the interdependence
> between the subsystems of that design. Designs which are highly
> interdependent tend to be rigid, unreusable and hard to maintain.
> Yet interdependence is necessary if the subsystems of the design are
> to collaborate. Thus, some forms of dependency must be desirable,
> and other forms must be undesirable. This paper proposes a design
> pattern in which all the dependencies are of the desirable form.
> Finally, this paper describes a set of metrics that measure the
> conformance of a design to the desirable pattern.

Kudos to the "Martin metric"!

[a lot snipped]

Check out the graph a page down.

[One more quoted page follows.]

[Conclusion snipped]

Read Martin's whole paper if you haven't.

Elliott

Sebastien Dubourg

unread,
Aug 29, 1994, 6:39:00 PM8/29/94
to

OK for your 'coupling' metrics: that can be a good indicator.

I thing your abstract 'metrics' is is too poor.

Your 'copy' example is to simple to proove anything. It is reusable
because it does nothing!.

You have just discovered that an object is reusable if it does almost
nothing (it has a lot of virtual functions: the behaviour of the object
is coded in the classes that inherit from this object). In this case the
object is reusable, but it isn't worth to re-use it because it save only
a small amount of work to do so.

The aim is not to build re-usable objects but to re-use efficiently
objects in several programs. Building re-usable objects that you won't
re-use is vain. The choose of the re-usable objects must be relevant (it
is a compromise between perfect reusability and pragmatism). You can only
build reusable objects by trying to reuse them in several applications
(the job is iterativ).

The only rule that can be extracted from experience is that a
resusable (efficiant) objects have virtual functions.


Sebastien Dubourg
sebastie...@top50.fdn.org
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