Analyzing and Measuring Reusability in Object-Oriented Designs

Abstract

In this paper, we present a technique to analyze and measure the reusability of object-oriented (OO) designs. The metrics can be incorporated into a design/development environment, so that reusability measurements, analysis, and improvements can be part of "business as usual" for an organization. Design reusability measurements also enable early identification of poor reuse potential, when it is still possible to modify/refine the design. The essential components of our approach are two reuse-specific characterizations of classes and hierarchies, and a set of metrics which objectively measures the dependencies among design components based on those reuse-specific characterizations.