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=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 11232c,3fd68bc06c32b870 X-Google-Attributes: gid11232c,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,41100a78496a4c71 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-04-05 17:23:04 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer-europe.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!luth.se!psiuk-p2!psiuk-p3!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,misc.misc Subject: Re: SLOC-wars Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 09:25:53 -0500 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: dhcp-200-133.miami.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 1018016756 6345 136.170.200.133 (5 Apr 2002 14:25:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 5 Apr 2002 14:25:56 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:22169 misc.misc:6146 Date: 2002-04-05T14:25:56+00:00 List-Id: Halstead may have defined a number of metrics, but the one that seemed to be discussed here was one for measuring volume of source code. I don't recall the definition (someone help here?) but it had to do with looking at the operators and the identifiers in a body of source and coming up with a number that tried to reflect the semantic content. Even though it is an after-the-fact number (as you rightly observe) it is still useful. "How big was this project relative to that project?" "If I have 10 programmers churning away on a large body of code every day, how much of it are they impacting in a given month?" "If I give those programmers faster workstations do they churn out more code in a given month?" All those sorts of questions can be looked into to some extent by being able to count up code volume - hopefully in a way that is less subject to artificial manipulation. All these sorts of metrics have their flaws - which we could debate endlessly - but its still worth collecting some anyway in order to hopefully advance understanding of the software development process & improve quality & productivity. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com "Kent Paul Dolan" wrote in message news:f6a580bb517ec9eced2eaa01cf9c9525.48257@mygate.mailgate.org... > > But I thought (with no expertise here) that the goal of stuff like > Halstead's metric was that you could estimate it at specification time, > and do foresight forecasting with that estimate. I'd shudder to think > what the accuracy of foresight guesses at SLOC from similar projects > might accomplish in setting milestone dates and such. >