The Complexity Map
By Mark Hissink Muller
The Complexity Map is a tool for measuring and visualizing accidental complexity (or technical debt) in Java applications.
The tool allows for software quality metrics from Checkstyle and PMD to be depicted in a treemap that is generated from the measured source code.
Per source code package, different types of quality metrics can be aggregated to provide a heat map that provides localised understanding and that can be used for sensitivity analysis.
Although The Complexity Map has been superseded by more modern solutions, its concepts remain valid today, especially in relation with the Application Structure Design approach.
A paper on ‘The Complexity Map’ was presented at IRPC08, the conference on Industrial Realities of Program Comprehension.