Functional complexity analysis

Summary form only given. Software complexity has long been acknowledged as a significant determinant of several important `non-functional´ system attributes, including quality, reliability and maintainability. Well over fifty techniques exist for the assessment of complexity; however, the effective application of a large number of these methods is impeded by several problems. The increasing use of automated software development environments, however, has reduced the influence of implementation methods and programmer abilities on development task difficulty. It is therefore suggested that complexity analysis may be performed solely on functional specification products rather than on the traditional products of the lower-level design and construction phases. It is hoped that use of the analysis scheme will significantly extend the current range of project management estimation possibilities