Reduction of software perfective and corrective maintenance cost
Abstract:
Maintainability is defined as the ease with which systems can be understood and modified. Maintenance is required for old legacy systems as well as new developed systems, which for example use object-oriented languages. It is well known that software maintenance consumes the majority of the costs of a software system during its entire life; estimates vary between 50 and 70 %.
For software systems that are under development the target is to reduce maintenance of software system already in early phase of software development. In that process measuring program structure can be used as a guideline for producing better code that contains fewer errors after the software system is released to the market. Old legacy systems that are in maintenance phase can also utilize software metrics that measures programs structure. In that case the target is to provide early estimates for allocating resources and estimating costs for maintenance tasks.