Stability assessment of evolving industrial object-oriented frameworks

Object-oriented framework technology has become a common reuse technology in software development. As with all software, frameworks evolve over time. Once the framework has been deployed, new versions of a framework potentially cause a high maintenance cost for the products built with the framework. This fact, in combination with the high costs of developing and evolving a framework, make it important for organizations to achieve a controlled and predictable evolution of the framework's functionality and costs. We present a metrics-based framework stability assessment method, which has been applied on two industrial frameworks from the telecommunication and graphical user interface domains. First, we discuss the framework concept and the frameworks studied. Then, the stability assessment method is presented including the metrics used. The results from applying the method, as well as an analysis of each of the frameworks, are described. We continue with a set of observations regarding the method, including framework differences that seem to be invariant with respect to the method. A set of framework stability indicators based on the results is then presented. Finally, we assess the method against issues related to the management and evolution of frameworks, framework deployment, change impact analysis and benchmarking. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.