The effects of design pattern application on metric scores

One method suggested for improving software quality has been that of collecting metric scores for a given design, and refactoring in response to what are deemed to be unsatisfactory metric values. More recently, the usage of design patterns has been recommended to promote adaptable designs, so reducing maintenance e€ort. These two approaches are therefore observed to e€ectively have the same general aim. The question then arises as to whether design metrics and design patterns are always compatible, and where this is not found to be the case whether the metric, the pattern or both are anomalous. Methods of analysis are presented which demonstrate the e€ects of applying various patterns on certain metric scores, the initial conclusion being that the two approaches are indeed mainly congruent.