Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]
Groups > comp.lang.java.programmer > #31503
| From | Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | comp.lang.java.programmer |
| Subject | Re: Return of the Applets? |
| Date | 2015-04-06 23:25 +0000 |
| Organization | A noiseless patient Spider |
| Message-ID | <mfv4kv$9q2$1@dont-email.me> (permalink) |
| References | (3 earlier) <mfs1gc$83b$1@dont-email.me> <mfufc2$r3q$1@dont-email.me> <mfuljg$l3a$1@dont-email.me> <mfuu0u$nqj$1@dont-email.me> <mfuums$q9u$1@dont-email.me> |
On Mon, 06 Apr 2015 17:44:48 -0400, Jerry Stuckle wrote: > LOC has been used as a measurement standard for the 47+ years I've been > programming. You may not think it's a good measurement, but the experts > in the field pretty much all agree on it. > LOC counting is a useful measurement within a project or within a single- language shop, but I don't think its at all useful for making measurements between languages except in limited cases. Its probably meaningful for comparing programming productivity between block-structured languages because by and large they tend to have similar sized statements and the statements have similar capabilities. But, once you start comparing radically different languages, it no longer makes sense to use LOC counting: the better 4GLs (Sculptor, NCC Filetab, Cognos, PowerBuilder, Xbase) can do a huge amount with very little code and so can be written very quickly while a COBOL program of less than 1000 lines would be little more than a warm-up exercise in most of the shops I've worked in. Every other language, except maybe assemblers, fit somewhere in between these extremes. Another problem with LOC measurements is that they usually ignore comments. Now, that may be OK in COBOL programs provided the local standards require meaningful data names and procedure division section and paragraph names because its hard to write anything that anywhere near as incomprehensible as a C-spell even if you use ALTER statements, but other languages (assembler, C, RPG) can easily become impenetrable without comments, and some are hard to follow almost by design (APL, Forth). I remmeber reading that Ken Iverson once wrote a screen editor in 26 lines of APL but was unable to amend it himself six months later: no comments of course, or it wouldn't have come anywhere close to fitting on a screen. Bottom line: a good programmer uses clear, well thought out comments throughout his code and sensible programming groups require it as part of their work packages because they know it will make changes easier. But nonetheless comments are ignored by almost all LOC statistics gathering tools. IMO this devalues the use of LOC counting for anything except estimating new projects and even there its results tend not to be valid outside a particular organisation and programming environment. -- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org |
Back to comp.lang.java.programmer | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-05 09:46 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2015-04-05 13:12 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-05 15:14 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-04-05 16:41 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-05 16:54 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-04-05 17:08 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-05 17:17 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-04-05 17:30 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-05 17:42 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-04-05 17:52 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-05 18:17 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Luuk <luuk@invalid.lan> - 2015-04-06 11:26 +0200
Re: Return of the Applets? Joshua Cranmer 🐧 <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2015-04-06 13:23 -0500
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-06 15:09 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Joshua Cranmer 🐧 <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2015-04-06 17:33 -0500
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-06 17:44 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Joshua Cranmer 🐧 <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2015-04-06 19:10 -0500
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-06 20:03 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Joshua Cranmer 🐧 <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2015-04-06 21:36 -0500
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-07 09:11 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-04-06 23:25 +0000
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-06 19:59 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-04-07 13:29 +0000
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-07 10:45 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-04-07 15:51 +0000
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-07 13:16 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-04-07 20:22 +0000
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-07 17:03 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm@huldreskog.localdomain> - 2015-04-07 11:34 -0500
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-07 13:18 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm@huldreskog.localdomain> - 2015-04-07 12:40 -0500
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-07 17:06 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-04-07 20:28 +0000
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-07 17:11 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-04-07 23:00 +0000
Re: Return of the Applets? Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-04-07 19:25 -0400
Re: Return of the Applets? Joshua Cranmer 🐧 <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2015-04-06 13:09 -0500
csiph-web