Number Of Children (NOC)

Overview

Inheritance, otherwise called generalization, is one of the fundamental concepts of object models, and must be used advisedly. Non-abusive use is a sign of quality and a good understanding of the concept. A class from which several classes inherit is a sensitive class, to which the user must pay great attention. It should, therefore, be limited, notably for reasons of simplicity.

Computation

For a class, this is the number of child classes.

For a package, this is the number of child packages.

Nominal range

Between 1 and 4.

Analysis

The upper and lower limits of 1 and 3 correspond to a desirable average. This will not stop certain particular classes being the kind of utility classes which provide services to significantly more classes than 3.