Observing distributions in size metrics: Experience from analyzing large software systems

Author(s) Rudolf Ramler
Klaus Wolfmaier
Thomas Natschläger
Title Observing distributions in size metrics: Experience from analyzing large software systems
Booktitle Proc. 31st IEEE Int. Computer Software and Applications Conference
Typ Inproceedings
Month July
Year 2007
Volume II
Pages 299-304
Publisher IEEE Computer Society
Address Beijing, China
ISBN 0-7695-2870-8
SCCH # 0707
In this paper we observe and compare distributions of popular size metric values from the analysis of different software systems as well as from different consecutive versions of one software system. The typically heavy-tailed distributions are visualized and discussed with the help of Pareto diagrams. We found that the distributions remain remarkable stable over time, support the identification of problem areas by statistical and relative threshold-based filtering, and show the ability to reveal the fundamental characteristics of a software system.