Comparative Metrics in Procedure-Oriented and Object-Oriented Software Implementation of a Simple Single-Input-Single-Output Digital Process Control Problem in Educational Environment

Despite the growing popularity of object oriented programming in the last decade, quantification of the effects of this new programming technique is still lacking. This paper studies the impact of the introduction object-oriented programming in a formerly procedural oriented environment within the application domain of single-input, single-output digital process controllers. Eighty-three senior students worked on same engineering problem first with a traditional procedure-oriented programming (POP) approach, and later using object-oriented programming (OOP) approach. The resulting products were analyzed and compared quantitatively using both product quality metrics and property-based metrics. The products developed using traditional procedure-oriented programming showed lower failure rate, higher quality, smaller size and lower complexity in the specific application domain. The outcome of this experiment does not mean that POP is generally better than OOP. Rather, we suggest that the introduction of OOP in an existing POP environment should be performed carefully, depending on the specific problem that is to be solved, the application domain, and the working environment