The fourth article in IBM developerWorks’ series “In Pursuit of Code Quality,” “Code quality for software architects” examines how to use coupling metrics to support your system’s architecture.

Most well-designed software architectures are intended to support a system’s extensibility, maintainability, and reliability. Unfortunately, inattention to quality issues can easily undermine a software architect’s best effort. There are a number of coupling metrics; two interesting examples that signify an architectural maintenance issue are Afferent Coupling and Efferent Coupling. These examples along with other architectural metrics will help you monitor, maintain, and correct the code quality of your software architecture.

Check out the “In Pursuit of Code Quality” series and feel free to engage in the “Improve your Java Code Quality” discussion forum for feedback, questions, or to post your own comments!