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To: Eugene Goodman who wrote (21497)11/17/1998 12:21:00 AM
From: Pink Minion  Read Replies (2) of 24154
 
I invite you to correct any or all of the above numbers.

Just to iterate. Counting lines of code is the worst way to count productivity or worse yet, judging complexity of a system.

The Dilbert strip has had some great threads on this.
dilbert.com
Yet, about every four years I get a pointy hair who wants me to count how lines of code is in a system. Marketing departments think it is a sign of complexity of a system. It is usually a design out of control.

If you want to pay me by lines of code, I can be very productive. Heck, why try to reuse code? Just clone it. Make it harder to maintain.

The cost of software is maintenance not development. Support, making changes, fixing bugs all rise with more lines of code. Thus, a good programmer should be judged by how little lines of code they have. How easy it is to maintain and make changes to? This is what object oriented programming tries to address. Making a system data driven so only data has to be changed instead of code can make a big difference in lines of code and cost of changes.

I always rewrite my systems twice. The first time is really just to understand the problem. The second time it is to consider support and future changes. To find objects that can be reused over and over. The number of lines of code goes down considerable after the second version.

Look at the Linux operating system. Something like 3? million lines of code. Yet, every line has probably been rewritten 10 times in the past 8 years.

Mr. B
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