Measuring product attributes of object-oriented systems

The role of internal product attributes for software measures is analyzed. Attributes are classified as “fundamental”, “auxiliary” and “useless” with respect to their relevance for controlling software quality. The impact of inappropriate attributes on the usefulness of resulting metrics is discussed with emphasis on the object-oriented paradigm. We demonstrate that some of the obvious shortcomings of proposed metrics are caused by inconsiderate attribute selections. In the course of this discussion which recurs to commonly accepted frameworks in measure theory, both, well-known attributes and new proposals are treated.