Measuring Maintainability

While measuring maintainability is subjective, here are some metrics to measure it: –

Code Duplication

The percentage of duplicated code present in the system can be an indicator of maintainability. Code duplication occurs when the same or very similar code appears in multiple places within the system. In that case, changes made to one component of duplicated code may need to be applied to other areas too. Code duplication can be measured with static code analysis tools that identify duplicated code segments.

Maintainability Index

It provides an overall score that represents the maintainability of a specific component/Code module/Entire system. The formula for calculating the Maintainability Index varies depending upon the IDE you are using, it basically combines complexity, duplication, and other factors to produce a single value. Higher Maintainability Index scores indicate better maintainability and many people in tech use this metric to identify sections of the codebase that require enhancements.

Test Coverage

It measures the extent to which automated tests cover the codebase, It helps prevent regressions from being introduced. Test coverage tools assess the extent of code exercised by automated tests, expressed as a percentage.

Documentation

Good documentation reduces the learning curve for new Devs and helps the existing team understand it better during maintenance. A Good documentation is the one, which makes a newcomer understand the project and also covers not only code comments but also architectural decisions, System design, API references, as well.

Team Collaboration

A strong collaborative culture within the development team helps them share knowledge with each other, perform Knowledge Transfer programs (KT), mentor newcomers, and work together on maintenance tasks, it helps team members grow together and makes sure someone won’t struggle in doing a particular task.

Time and Resource constraints

It’s important to balance between speed of development as well as speed of maintainability. A rush by the development team to complete a tight deadline without considering maintainability can lead to complicated future maintenance efforts.

Code Churn

It measures the frequency of changes to a code module over time using Version Control’s data. Active maintenance is essential for improvements and bug fixes, but excessive code churn may also indicate instability and the need for more thorough testing. By monitoring, focus areas of the system that may require more attention can be identified during maintenance.

Cyclomatic Complexity

It measures the complexity of a code module. Higher complexity is an indication that the code is more complicated to understand and there may be potential easier ways available to break the complexity of a particular code module.

Maintainability determines how easy and profitable it will be to maintain, update, and do upgrades in that software system. In this composition, we will understand the concept of maintainability in System Design, see how we can measure it, and bandy some stylish practices to achieve high maintainability as well.