Criteria for program comprehension derived from software complexity metrics

Abstract

Program comprehension is close related to program complexity. In order to analyze program complexity much effort has been spent to measure the complexity of programs. For this reason hundreds of software complexity measures have been proposed. Criteria/conditions for program comprehension from software complexity measures are derived. It is also shown that using measurement theoretic numerical conditions from software complexity measures can be translated back to empirical conditions. That means the term comprehension can be described by empirical axioms. This approach makes it easier to talk about the term program comprehension.<>