This paper summarizes, interprets and applies important metrics lor object-oriented systems. Metrics Include the Chidamber-Kemerer metrics suite that revolves around class structure, and is primarily applied to object-oriented software constructs and concepts. Metrics are applied to an object-oriented example, and software quality attributes are related to their respective metrics. It turns out that optimizing a metric for one quality attribute must often trade off with diminishing quality for another attribute.