Xref: utzoo comp.software-eng:2460 comp.misc:7429 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!srhqla!quad1!ttidca!hollombe From: hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,comp.misc Subject: Re: Programmer productivity Keywords: Programmer Productivity Metrics Message-ID: <7876@ttidca.TTI.COM> Date: 20 Nov 89 22:06:01 GMT References: Reply-To: hollombe@ttidcb.tti.com (The Polymath) Distribution: na Organization: The Cat Factory Lines: 27 In article emuleomo@paul.rutgers.edu (Emuleomo) writes: }I heard that the average programmer produces 3-4 lines of *finished* }code a day! }This sounds ridiculously low. Does anybody out there know what the real }figure is? Or is it misleading to try and gauge productivity this way? It is a bit misleading unless you specify the language. On the other hand, the figure isn't unreasonable. Sure, I can crank out a few hundred lines on a good day with a lot of borrowing, BUT that isn't "finished" code. It still has to be debugged, tested, certified and documented. And _that's_ assuming the code is for in-house or personal use. If it's for use by relatively naive customers I'll have to spend a lot of time researching and designing the user interface before I even _begin_ to write the code to run it -- not to mention all the time spent designing the underlying data structures and algorithms. Then there's the days when the system crashes or the test facilities aren't available and I catch up on journals and net news. (-: When you put it that way, 4 lines per day is pretty good "average" coding. -- The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, hollombe@ttidca.tti.com) Illegitimis non Citicorp(+)TTI Carborundum 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. (213) 452-9191, x2483 Santa Monica, CA 90405 {csun|philabs|psivax}!ttidca!hollombe