Computing ripple effect for object oriented software

Software metrics can provide us with information regarding the quality of software. The ripple effect metric shows what impact changes to software will have on the rest of the system. It can be used during software maintenance to keep the system at a high level of quality. The computation of ripple effect is based on the effect that a change to a single variable will have on the rest of a program; it provides a measure of the program's complexity. The original algorithm used to compute ripple effect has been reformulated to provide clarity in the operations involved and the measurement of ripple effect for procedural software. This paper describes the ripple effect metric and considers its applicability as a software complexity measure for object oriented software. Extensions are proposed to the computation of ripple effect to accommodate different aspects of the object oriented paradigm