07-09-2014, 11:04 AM
Software Engineering is defined in the IEEE Standard 610.12, as ―The application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software; that is, the application of engineering to software.‖ Metrics are used by the software industry to quantify the development, operation and maintenance of software. The practice of applying software metrics to a software process and to a software product is a complex task that requires study and discipline and which brings knowledge of the status of the process and / or product of software in regards to the goals to achieve. Product metrics are also known as quality metrics and is used to measure the properties of the software. Product metrics includes product non reliability metrics, functionality metrics, performance metrics, usability metrics, cost metrics, size metrics, complexity metrics and style metrics. Products metrics help in improving the quality of different system component & comparisons between existing systems. This dissertation attempts to characterize and present several metrics in software engineering. Here we focus on Software metrics which can be used to aid in managing and engineering a software product. Furthermore we hope this study can be helpful in engineering of software which is reliable, maintainable and as defect free as possible. We find that that there are specific metrics for measuring an aspect of software. When used properly, i.e., when a company uses the best software metric for each aspect, the quality of the software will dramatically increase. Therefore, we highly recommend using software metrics for an augmentation of the overall experience of the software product.