Inheritance software metrics on smart contracts

Abstract

Blockchain systems have gained substantial traction recently, partlydue to the potential of decentralized immutable mediation of economic activities. Ethereum is a prominent example that has theprovision for executing stateful computing scripts known as SmartContracts. These smart contracts resemble traditional programs, butwith immutability being the core differentiating factor. Given theirimmutability and potential high monetary value, it becomes imperative to develop high-quality smart contracts. Software metricshave traditionally been an essential tool in determining programming quality. Given the similarity between smart contracts (writtenin Solidity for Ethereum) and object-oriented (OO) programming,OO metrics would appear applicable. In this paper, we empiricallyevaluate inheritance-based metrics as applied to smart contracts.We adopt this focus because, traditionally, inheritance has beenlinked to a more complex codebase which we posit is not the casewith Solidity based smart contracts. In this work, we evaluate thehypothesis that, due to the differences in the context of smart contracts and OO programs, it may not be appropriate to use the sameinterpretation of inheritance based metrics for assessment.