From: eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)
Subject: Re: Lines of documentation per LOC
Date: 25 Oct 94 19:00:56
Date: 1994-10-25T19:00:56+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <EACHUS.94Oct25190056@spectre.mitre.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: lpb@sei.cmu.edu's message of Tue, 25 Oct 1994 17:00:05 EDT
In article <1994Oct25.170005.27711@sei.cmu.edu> lpb@sei.cmu.edu (Loic Briand) writes:
> Is there any document or source of information that provides
> an accepted (?) ratio (lines of documentation / lines of code) for a
> software design document (SDD)?
> Talking with people around me, I got values between 10 and 0.1,
> but no rationale other than: "the description has to be complete and
> sufficient to allow modifications" and stuff like that.
At first I couldn't believe that this was posted by someone at the
SEI. Then I noticed it was posted by an industrial affiliate, who may
learn something while he is there. And on second reading, I realized
he had gotten the right answers and dismissed them! Maybe he won't
learn after all.
The right amount of documentation is a function of the code! I
have written pages of doumentation for a dozen line package. I have
also written code with very sparse documentation--in some cases just a
mathematical sequence and its source. Anyone looking for magic
numbers in this area is doomed to be frustrated. Anyone working
for him is probably going to be damned to a Procrustean bed.
--
Robert I. Eachus
with Standard_Disclaimer;
use Standard_Disclaimer;
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~1994-10-25 19:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1994-10-25 21:00 Lines of documentation per LOC Loic Briand
1994-10-25 19:00 ` Robert I. Eachus [this message]
1994-10-26 13:45 ` Loic Briand
1994-10-26 19:22 ` Robert Firth
1994-10-26 22:30 ` Robert Dewar
1994-10-27 14:55 ` Norman H. Cohen
1994-10-29 10:42 ` mat
1994-10-29 10:32 ` mat
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
1994-12-07 12:57 Loic Briand
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