Hierarchy-Aware Software Metrics in Component Composition Hierarchies

Software metrics like Lines of Code are commonly used in software engineering. Although software metrics are defined to give a concrete statement on a particular facet of a software entity, they are usually interpreted from the viewpoint of more abstract concepts like complexity. Software metrics were developed for a particular context (like an architectural model), but are often used in others than the one they were defined for. The usability of metrics in a particular context highly depends on whether they have properties like extensive structure. Extensive structure and more basic properties were originally introduced in the field of measurement theory that has been used as basis for software measurement in the past.

In this thesis we address the software measurement related issues arising from considering software metrics in component based systems.