Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!decwrl!netcomsv!jls
From: jls@netcom.COM (Jim Showalter)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: COCOMO
Message-ID: <1991Jun20.045334.4415@netcom.COM>
Date: 20 Jun 91 04:53:34 GMT
References: <1991Jun18.033606.1362@netcom.COM> <568@smds.UUCP> <1991Jun19.174716.6861@netcom.COM> <677386979@macbeth.cs.duke.edu>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  UNIX System {408 241-9760 guest}
Lines: 20

>Another point is one
>that Dijkstra harps on a bit -- SLOC measures a kind of bulk
>productivity that might give a disincentive to good and elegant
>programming.  You must be careful not to *reward* people on the basis of
>SLOC per hour at a desk, because you'll get crap -- big crap.

Agreed! I have often pointed out when discussing reuse that the issue
is not how much code a person wrote this week--it's how much code the
person AVOIDED writing this week while still providing the required
functionality. If a project estimates N SLOC is required to satisfy
the requirements and some reuse guru manages to satisfy the requirements
by only writing N/100 SLOC of trivial glue code, something significant
has been achieved, and a hell of a lot of money has been saved. Perhaps
programmers should get a percentage of those savings as a way to encourage
thinking before typing...
-- 
*** LIMITLESS SOFTWARE, Inc: Jim Showalter, jls@netcom.com, (408) 243-0630 ****
*Proven solutions to software problems. Consulting and training on all aspects*
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