Build Metrics: June 2008 Archives

Metrics Overview

Before covering the detailed metrics for B448 I figured a bit of an overview on Understand 2.0 metrics would be useful.

Project vs Change Metrics

There are two basic kinds of metrics that we provide in Understand 2.0.   The first is Project Metrics, which give a static view of a particular point in time.  Examples of this are CountLine and Cyclomatic. Understand 2.0 computes and presents the value of these metrics for any snapshot in the database.  

The second kind is Change Metrics. These show differences between snapshots. The differences can be static - i.e. comparing Cyclomatic from B448 to Cyclomatic in B447. Or it can be dynamic, for instance showing lines deleted (calculated by looking at diffs).

How are Snapshots Made?

You can make a snapshot in three easy ways. First, make one from the current database. Second, make one from an alternate source location where you checked out another version of your source code, and third you can make one from any point in time using TrackBack (after version B443).  All these are done from the Change->Snapshot Manager menu.

Build 448 Metrics

After making a snapshot for B448, the Snapshot Manager showed me this basic information about each recent snapshot:

I’m writing this post using data and charts directly made by the the new “Metrics” menu of Understand 2.0.  It provides metrics browsing and charts directly inside of Understand 2.0.    How does this differ from our upcoming Measure tool?  Primarily in scope and flexibility. With Measure you can custom design charts and comparisons and automatically report them, plus a few zillion other things.  But the new “Metrics” menu provides quite a bit of useful information with pretty much zero learning curve.

B447

I made a snapshot. This told me this basic information about B447 versus B446:

1,719 classes in B447, while 1487 were in B446.  We’ve been busy (-:

Here is an Understand 2.0 generated chart of the line volume information for B447: