Coupling measures and change ripples in C++ application software

AbstractThis paper describes an investigation into the effects of class couplings on changes made to a commercial C++ application over a period of 212 yr. The Chidamber and Kemerer CBO metric is used to measure class couplings within the application and its limitations are identified. Through an in-depth study of the ripple effects of changes to the source code, practical insight into the nature and extent of software couplings is provided