Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!udel!princeton!pucc!EGNILGES From: EGNILGES@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng Subject: Re: WANTED: "C" code line counter program Message-ID: <12632@pucc.Princeton.EDU> Date: 26 Mar 91 15:55:44 GMT References: <1991Mar6.214157.18633@ntpal.uucp# <9082@suns6.crosfield.co.uk# Reply-To: EGNILGES@pucc.Princeton.EDU Organization: Princeton University, NJ Lines: 44 Disclaimer: Author bears full responsibility for contents of this article In article <350@tslwat.UUCP>, louk@tslwat.UUCP (Lou Kates) writes: >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... ># >#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. > >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. This sounds impressive but it is quite vague. "Correlated" with what? Each other? But if any number of measures "correlate" with each other, what does THAT mean? Are they GOOD measures? Enquiring minds want to know. And the susceptibility of software systems, so emphasized by Tony Hoare in his critique a few years ago of Strategic Defense Initiative, to outlier events and chaotic behavior (captured in such gnomic statements as "ten percent of the code causes ninety percent of the bugs") means that a 90 percent correlation is not so good after all (assuming we know what it means.) Case in point: program A falls thru the cracks as a "noncomplicated program" because it has only ONE line. It fails. The programmer assigned to fix it NOW opens it up and finds that this "noncomplicated" program is one, 4096 byte, line of C code containing a thousand statements. The programmer is unable to get it working and is sacked for not being competent enough to fix "simple" code (don't laugh: this stuff happens.) The Exchange opens up on the following Monday, the one-line program starts a wild run on cocoa which translates into a generalized financial panic. So much for "metrics". +--------------------------------+ Edward G. Nilges | Child support, tax-deductible | Princeton University | to payer AND receiver: an idea | Information Center | whose time has come. | Bitnet: EGNILGES@PUCC +--------------------------------+ (609) 258-2985