Investigations in applying metrics to multi-view architecture models

The goal of our research is to develop industry-proof software architecture and design metrics. We identify a number of problems that arise in computing software architecture and design metrics in industrial settings that were not encountered in computing source-code metrics. These problems include the absence of a single, unifying representation for architectures and they arise from the fact that architecture diagrams are used in an informal manner. We describe our approach towards defining metrics for architectures and designs which are represented in the 4+1 views paradigm using UML. We report our experiences with architectural metrics in industrial settings.