Assessing Software Metrics and Complexity in Student and Open-Source Projects Using Static Analysis

Császár, Péter János and Cserép, Máté (2026) Assessing Software Metrics and Complexity in Student and Open-Source Projects Using Static Analysis. In: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Applied Informatics. Líceum Kiadó, Eger, pp. 81-95. ISBN 9789634963271

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Abstract

Maintaining code quality remains a significant challenge in both educational and professional software development. This paper presents the development and evaluation of static code analysis tools aimed at identifying structural issues, such as complexity, cohesion, and maintainability in C# projects. The analyzers were applied to student projects from a Software Technology course. Code metrics were computed across multiple development milestones to track trends in code quality over time. In addition to student projects, a diverse set of publicly available opensource C# projects was analyzed to evaluate the behavior of the implemented metrics in real-world software systems. These projects vary in size, domain, architectural style, and development practices, enabling a broader assessment of the robustness and general applicability of the approach. Due to the wide range of targeted .NET versions and dependency configurations across projects, the analysis was conducted using a Docker-based environment to provide controlled and reproducible execution contexts. The results demonstrate that metric-based static analysis can effectively support the early detection of problematic code segments and provide actionable insights to improve software quality. The approach is adaptable and shows potential for integration into continuous development workflows in both academic and real-world environments.

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