How bad is SLOC (source lines of code) as a metric? -

-

we documenting our software development process. technical people, pretty easy: iterative development internal milestones every 4 weeks, external every 3 months.

however, purpose of exercise expose things our project management in terms can understand. specifically, these non-technical managers need metrics can understand.

i understand our options metrics , have proposed whole set (requirements met , actual costs vs. budgeted costs 2 of favorites). however, have old hands involved , tend hang onto metrics sloc.

i understand temptation of sloc: seems easy non-software people understand , seems closest analog of physical thing (it's counting punched cards in old days!).

so here's question: how can explain dangers of sloc non-technical person?

here's concrete motivation: work on mature deployed system has years of history behind it. add features, sloc tends stay approximately level or decrease (refactoring removes old / dead code, new features adjustments of existing, etc). non-programmer manager, non-increasing sloc in development project perplexing @ best....

clarifying in response recent answer below: remember, i'm arguing sloc bad metric purposes of measuring project progress. i'm not arguing number that's not worth collecting. requires extensive context useful , program managers don't have context.

someone said :

"using sloc measure software progress using kg measuring progress on aircraft manufacturing"

it totally inappropriate encourages bad practices :

  • copy-paste-syndrome

  • discourage refactoring make things easier

  • stuffing meaningless comments

  • ...

the use can estimate how paper put in printer when printout of complete source tree.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

c++ - Convert big endian to little endian when reading from a binary file -

-
this question has answer here: how convert between big-endian , little-endian values in c++? 28 answers i've been looking around how convert big-endian little-endians. didn't find solve problem. seem there's many way can conversion. anyway following code works ok in big-endian system. how should write conversion function work on little-endian system well? this homework, since systems @ school running big-endian system. it's got curious , wanted make work on home computer also #include <iostream> #include <fstream> using namespace std; int main() { ifstream file; file.open("file.bin", ios::in | ios::binary); if(!file) cerr << "not able read" << endl; else { cout << "opened" << endl; int i_var; double d_var; while(!file.eof()) {...
Read more

C#: Application without a window or taskbar item (background app) that can still use Console.WriteLine() -

-
i'm trying create application adheres following: no taskbar no console or form window can utilize console.writeline() . (i.e. if executes app command prompt write console.) the problem if create windows form (or wpf) application can have there no taskbar, console or window show up, console.writeline() nothing. if create console app, writes console, can't figure out how hide (and if did hide it, write command prompt window?)... how do this? just create standard console application. callers responsibility hide window caused program (from how run c# console application console hidden ): system.diagnostics.processstartinfo start = new system.diagnostics.processstartinfo(); start.filename = dir + @"\myprocesstostart.exe"; start.windowstyle = system.diagnostics.processwindowstyle.hidden;
Read more

unicode - Are email addresses allowed to contain non-alphanumeric characters? -

-
i'm building website using `django. website have significant users non-english speaking countries. i want know if there technical restrictions on types of characters email address contain. are email addresses allowed contain english alphabets, numbers, "_", "@" , "."? are allowed contain non-english alphabets "é" or "ü"? are allowed contain chinese or japanese or other unicode characters? email address consists of 2 parts local before @ , domain goes after. rules these parts different: for local part can use ascii: latin letters - z - z digits 0 - 9 special characters !#$%&'*+-/=?^_`{|}~ dot ., not first or last, , not in sequence space , "(),:;<>@[] characters allowed restrictions (they allowed inside quoted string, backslash or double-quote must preceded backslash) plus since 2012 can use international characters above u+007f , encoded as utf-8 . domain part more res...
Read more