Computing software metrics from design documents

Software metrics can provide an automated way for software practitioners to assess the quality of their software. The earlier in the software development lifecycle this information is available, the more valuable it is, since changes are much more expensive to make later in the lifecycle.Semantic metrics, introduced by Etzkorn and Delugach, assess software according to the meaning of the software's functionality in its domain. This is in contrast to traditional metrics, which use syntax measures to assess code. Because semantic metrics do not rely on the syntax or structure of code, they can be computed from requirements or design specifications before the system has been implemented. This paper focuses on using semantic metrics to assess systems that have not yet been implemented.