The basis of the scientific method is recording data. To record data we need to establish metrics. Without standard units and measurement there is no physics. Without metrics there is no software process. Without records we have only myths.
The other day I was speaking with a developer with about 8 year experience. I asked, on a software tool project, using the C programming language, with an expected size of 10K lines of code (LOC), what would be the average LOC per day. (He did not ask as to how I defined LOC. I broadly put it as the number of executable LOC - STXLN in the tool QA-C from Programming Research). The amazing answer: ~400 LOC/day!!!
In the Tools BU of Acme Technologies we constructed and renovated programming tools. My experience was a rate of 8~10 LOC/day. We had recorded data. We did not depend on myths.
Have a look at the data for the project gpsd — a GPS service daemon. A code-only size of 51,064 required 12 person-years. Assuming 22 working days/month, this works out to a rate of 16 LOC/day!
PS: An earlier post on keeping records
Showing posts with label Keeping Records. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Keeping Records. Show all posts
25 January 2014
15 March 2011
acmet's Tools BU Should Have Hired Parsis
I am currently reading historian Ramachandra Guha's book, "A Corner Of A Foreign Field". As its subtitle says it is the Indian history of a British Sport. I am no fan of Mr. Guha, but I was asked by my brother not to pre-judge and read the book. I am currently progressing at a couple of pages a day. Not because of Mr. Guha's writing, which is excellent, nor the content, which he presents very well, but because I continue to be pre-occupied with caring for my mother, working out, exploring avenues for remunerative work, and drinking beer.
The book is a social history of cricket. Guha writes in the preface, "The making of modern India is its theme, with cricket serving merely as a vehicle, as my chief source of illustrative example". Though I have read just 56 pages, I recommend this book very highly.
Coming back to the subject of this post. People who have worked with me know the importance that I attached to a written record - Records of Discussion, Minutes of Meetings, Code reviews comments recorded by email, ... Now I know why it was so hard.
Guha says, " ... we, as a people, have a criminal indifference to the written record" (pg 46). He goes on to say, "Among the things borrowed by the Parsis from the British was a regard for facts". He mentions one Mr. Framji Patel who wrote a book that talked only of Parsi cricket and not Hindu cricket. The reason that the Mr Patel gave was that he would be "poaching on the preserves of my friend Mr. Telang, who, like a Rishi, has long contemplated writing a history of Hindu cricket".
Mr Guha's tongue-in-cheek comment: "This was a mistake, for Telang's book never appeared. Like a Rishi, the Hindu sportsman would operate only in the oral tradition".
The Tools BU had a lot of wannabe Rishis (some were even named Rishi:-).
The book is a social history of cricket. Guha writes in the preface, "The making of modern India is its theme, with cricket serving merely as a vehicle, as my chief source of illustrative example". Though I have read just 56 pages, I recommend this book very highly.
Coming back to the subject of this post. People who have worked with me know the importance that I attached to a written record - Records of Discussion, Minutes of Meetings, Code reviews comments recorded by email, ... Now I know why it was so hard.
Guha says, " ... we, as a people, have a criminal indifference to the written record" (pg 46). He goes on to say, "Among the things borrowed by the Parsis from the British was a regard for facts". He mentions one Mr. Framji Patel who wrote a book that talked only of Parsi cricket and not Hindu cricket. The reason that the Mr Patel gave was that he would be "poaching on the preserves of my friend Mr. Telang, who, like a Rishi, has long contemplated writing a history of Hindu cricket".
Mr Guha's tongue-in-cheek comment: "This was a mistake, for Telang's book never appeared. Like a Rishi, the Hindu sportsman would operate only in the oral tradition".
The Tools BU had a lot of wannabe Rishis (some were even named Rishi:-).
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