Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!maytag!mks.com!tslwat!louk
From: louk@tslwat.UUCP (Lou Kates)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: WANTED: "C" code line counter program
Message-ID: <350@tslwat.UUCP>
Date: 25 Mar 91 23:25:08 GMT
References: <1991Mar6.214157.18633@ntpal.uucp# <9082@suns6.crosfield.co.uk# <MITCH.91Mar11175953@hq.af.mil# <4816@berry19.UUCP# <12609@pucc.Princeton.EDU#
Reply-To: louk@tslwat.UUCP (Lou Kates)
Organization: Teleride Sage, Ltd., Waterloo
Lines: 26

In article <12609@pucc.Princeton.EDU# EGNILGES@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes:
#In article <4816@berry19.UUCP#, crocker@motcid.UUCP (Ronald T. Crocker) writes:
#
##
##Get off of this guy's back already.  He wants a simple C program to
##count C lines of code.  Whether LOC is a valid metric is not the
##question at hand; LOC is, generally speaking, a good heuristic
#
#A metric that counts statements is much better than an inaccurate
#heuristic and a tool to do so, while not trivial, is easily
#generated using yacc and lexx.
#
#A crude line counter has negative worth.  It will assess programs
#that use white space to clarify logic as "more complicated" than
#programs that look like a burst of line noise.
#
#I'm not "on the guy's back".  But if you're going to measure, do
#it right.  This whole discussion shows why Dijkstra defines
#software engineering as "computer science for people who can't
#program."

All the popular measures are highly correlated (over 90% positive
correlation in  the study  I saw)  so for most purposes it really
doesn't matter what you use.

Lou Kates, Teleride Sage Ltd., louk%tslwat@watmath.waterloo.edu