Howdy!

I'm preparing a talk on code metrics and would love input from the community on what to cover. I'll be presenting this later this year at both the Houston .NET User Group and the North Houston .NET User Group.

Throughout my software engineering career, I’ve encountered many of these metrics, but I’ve rarely seen a single, clear explanation of them all in one place. My goal with this talk is to demystify code metrics—helping software engineers, architects, and engineering managers understand what these metrics are, what insights they provide, and their limitations.

Right now, I’m planning to cover the following metrics:

• Code Coverage %

• Cyclomatic Complexity

• Maintainability Index

• Lines of Code (LOC)

• Code Churn

• Afferent & Efferent Coupling

• Instability

• Coupling Between Objects

• Depth of Inheritance Tree (DIT)

• Lack of Cohesion in Methods (LCOM)

• Tight Class Cohesion / Loose Class Cohesion

• Response for a Class (RFC)

• Duplication Percentage

• Defect Density

This is probably more than I can fit into an hour, so I’d love your input:
✅ Which of these metrics should I prioritize?
✅ Are there any important metrics I’ve overlooked?
✅ Have you found specific metrics useful or misleading in your work?

If there’s enough interest, I could explore a deeper dive or a follow-up session on specific metrics. Let me know what you think!