Some maintainability metrics for a communication protocol specified in Estelle

Abstract

With the application of formal description techniques (FDTs) in the communication protocol area since the mid 1980s, avenues have been opened up to allow a system to be analyzed early in the specification phase. Quantitative measures on its maintainability can then be extracted from such a formal specification, so that we can develop easily maintainable communication software systems and further reduce the increasingly high cost of software maintenance. This paper describes some maintainability metrics for a communication protocol specified in Estelle.