From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: *** X-Spam-Status: No, score=3.4 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_50,INVALID_DATE, MSGID_SHORT,REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Xref: utzoo comp.object:2753 comp.lang.ada:4984 Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!maverick.ksu.ksu.edu!iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu!ns-mx!umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu!csq031 From: csq031@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: ada-c++ productivity Keywords: Looking for a few lazy men Message-ID: <4921@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> Date: 17 Mar 91 20:26:56 GMT References: <1991Mar15.224626.27077@aero.org> <1991Mar16.000624.2513@leland.Stanford.EDU> <1991Mar16.205228.4268@grebyn.com> <1991Mar17.142756.25676@ecst.csuchico.edu> Sender: news@ns-mx.uiowa.edu Reply-To: csq031@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu () Followup-To: comp.object Organization: U of Iowa, Iowa City, IA List-Id: In article <1991Mar17.142756.25676@ecst.csuchico.edu> rreid@ecst.csuchico.edu (Ralph Reid III) writes: >I don't know where these companies are digging up these kind of >unproductive machine operators (I hesitate to call them real >programmers), but they would never get through the computer science >program here at Chico State. It kind of makes me wonder what schools >they came from, if they even have degrees. The kind of productivity >discussed in this article sounds like the level I might expect from >beginning programming students at a junior college. I would like to >know what in this world could reduce a serious programmer's >productivity to these levels. > >-- Lines of code per day is an absurd measure at best. Using it in contracts is just a way of lulling people who care about such things into thinking that programmers (and software companies) know what they're doing and that their output is quantifiable. The actual situation (as most people know) is that when you set out to write something non-trivial, that hasn't been done already, you're much more like Lewis and Clark setting out in canoes than you are like a machinist putting a block of steel into the lathe. This scares the living shit out of bean counters. But anyway, if you measure lines/day after the fact, i.e after the program has been designed, written, tested, documented, beta-tested, and accepted as done by the customer, you'll find 3-10 lines per code a day per programmer to be fairly respectable. If the program really works well, most customers wouldn't care if they only did 1 line per day, so long as it was finished in a timely manner. -- Kent Williams --- williams@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu "'Is this heaven?' --- 'No, this is Iowa'" - from the movie "Field of Dreams" "This isn't heaven, ... this is Cleveland" - Harry Allard, in "The Stupids Die"