A new measure of software complexity based on cognitive weights

One of the central problems in software engineering is the inherited complexity. Since software is the result of human creative activities, cognitive informatics plays an important role in understanding the fundamental characteristics of software. This paper models one of the fundamental characteristics of software, complexity, by examining the cognitive weights of basic control structures of software. Based on this approach a new concept of cognitive functional size of software is developed. Comparative case studies between the cognitive complexity and physical sizes of 23 programs are reported. The cognitive functional size provides a foundation for cross-platform analysis of complexities, sizes, and comprehension effort of software specifications and implementations in the phases of design, implementation, or maintenance in software engineering.