Xref: utzoo comp.software-eng:2537 comp.misc:7500 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!psueea!psueea.uucp!warren From: warren@psueea.uucp (Warren Harrison) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,comp.misc Subject: Re: Programmer productivity Message-ID: <2026@psueea.UUCP> Date: 28 Nov 89 16:57:17 GMT References: <34796@regenmeister.uucp> Sender: news@psueea.UUCP Reply-To: warren@jove.cs.pdx.edu (Warren Harrison) Distribution: na Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Portland State University; Portland OR Lines: 24 >From article , by emuleomo@paul.rutgers.edu (Emuleomo): >> 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? >> If it is, what are the recommended ways to measure programmer productivity >> using some sort of metrics! > Typically, these figures are based on person-days of effort for the entire project. So if you have a 1,000,000 line project and you spend 1,000 person years on it you come up with about 3 lines per person day. However, those 1,000 person years usually include the effort to do requirements, specs, design, testing, etc., as well as programming. I would personally suspect anyone who claims to have detailed enough information on a large enough sample of software to break down how much was spent "programming" (what exactly *is* programming anyway? inspections? low-level design? thinking? hmmm???) in a meaningful manner. Warren Warren Harrison CSNET: warren@cs.pdx.edu Department of Computer Science UUCP: {ucbvax,decvax}!tektronix!psueea!warren Portland State University Internet: warren%cs.pdx.edu@relay.cs.net Portland, OR 97207-0751 Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com