The role of software measures and metrics in studies of program comprehension

Abstract

Many studies have been conducted into how programmers comprehend software. Models based on these studies have pointed to top-down, bottom-up, and mixed models for describing the comprehension process. In most of these studies, however, a key element of the experiment is largely ignored: the underlying nature of the software being examined by the programmers. This paper discusses software measurements and metrics that must be considered as factors when conducting comprehension studies.