A Metric for the Activeness of a Class

Abstract

In this paper, the authors propose a software metric called Class Activeness Metric which helps to determine the level of accessibility of the members of a class when it is instantiated as objects. Object interactions need to be straight forward as far as possible as complexity in these interactions can lead to time delays in accessing members not just confusing inheritance hierarchies. For object interactions to be non-complex, the classes must be designed well so that they are easily accessible. This necessitates the development of a metric for gauging the quality of design of a class. This metric is the Class Activeness Metric.