Abstract
Early estimation of the size of a software product is extremely important. In this paper we analyze two software packages developed by a CMM level 3 software firm. We study if any property of analysis objects can be used to infer the size of the final code in an object-oriented environment. In both cases we find the number of methods well correlated with software size, in the sense that the correlation with the final size is high (r > 0.77) and significant at the level 0.05. Inferential statistics guarantee that the results of this study are also applicable outside the scope of the two projects. (C) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.