A Proposal for Normalized Lack of Cohesion in Method (LCOM) Metric Using Field Experiment
Chidamber and Kemerer first defined a cohesion measure for
object-oriented software – the Lack of Cohesion in Methods
(LCOM) metric. One of the critique of the LCOM metric is that
the metric does not yield normalized or standardized values, and
as such, the metric does not seem appealing to a section of the
software engineering community. This paper presents an
approach for normalizing the LCOM metric so that most
practioners would find it as useful as its variant measures such as
Tight Class Cohesion (TCC), Low Class Cohesion (LCC),
Degree of Cohesion in a Class based on direct relation between
its public relations (DCD) and that based on indirect methods
(DCI). Data for this study was gathered from three industrial
systems. System 1 has 34 classes, System 2 has 383 classes and
System 3 has 1055 classes. The main objectives of the study
were to apply different normalization approaches in order to
determine the best for the LCOM metric. Three normalization
techniques namely Sigmoid normalization, Bowless
normalization, and Bestfit normalization were used in the study
of the selected test systems. The result of the study showed that
the Bestfit approach seem to be the best LCOM normalization
approach.
Keywords: Class Cohesion, LCOM Metric, Normalization,
Software Measurement
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