Implementing and Validating Evolvability Metrics: An Aspect- Oriented Approach

Abstract

In the process of developing software and fulfilling to the current trends, every modularized concern needs Extensibility, Changeability, Design Stability and Sustainability. Our study implements the software metrics to measure the evolution of aspect-oriented systems and the qualities of extensible, changeable, design stable and sustainable features are focused as the subcharacteristics of Evolvability. The proposed metrics: Extensibility Quality Measurement (EQM), Changeability Quality Measurement (CQM), Design Stability Quality Measurement (DSQM) and Sustainability Quality Measurement (SQM) are aimed to measure the qualities aspect-oriented (AO) software that are implemented in AspectJ and other aspectoriented programming (AOP) languages. The statistical analysis of these software quality factors is based on MobileMedia and HealthWatcher, AspectJ projects. To prove the usefulness of the proposed metrics, it is validated empirically by using Self-Organizing Map (SOM) algorithm and theoretically by using Extension of Briand’s OO metrics Framework.