Identification and Validation of Quantitative Measures of the Psychological Complexity of Software.

Abstract

This final report describes a program of research conducted to identify factors affecting the psychological complexity of software. The work conducted pursuant to this task consisted of three within subjects, multifactor experiments. The methodology employed in these experiments is described in detail. Separate sections discuss the results obtained for software complexity metrics and for modern coding practices. The major results of this research program are experimental verifications of increased programmer efficiency when working with structured code and the ability to predict programmer performance with Halstead's effort metric (a quantitative measure of software complexity). (Author)

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 27, 1979
Accession Number
ADA072547

Entities

People

  • Bill Curtis
  • Sylvia B. Sheppard

Organizations

  • General Electric

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Algorithms
  • Applied Psychology
  • Behavioral Sciences
  • Computational Complexity
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Debugging
  • Human Factors Engineering
  • Information Processing
  • Military Research
  • Psychology
  • Software Development
  • Software Metrics
  • Students
  • Systems Engineering

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Engineering

Readers

  • Software Engineering.
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.
  • Technical Research and Report Writing.