Re: personal productivity metrics (was Re: Female Java Programmers...)

Chris Uppal wrote:
joseph_daniel_zukiger@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

I largely agree. There have been times when I've cranked out code that fast or
faster (I'm pretty quick when I'm on a roll), but normally I'd say that if you
are in that position then there's a good chance that you are missing a chance
to abstract and/or automate.
>
There's another case, though its a bit rare. Some time back I was working on a large online system where we had a number of modules that pulled data out of the database and displayed it to answer queries. We had a standard query response skeleton that just needed filling with appropriate DB access statements and display formatting statements: the rest of the system was menu-driven and had already collected the data retrieval keys. This was entirely COBOL code using an IDMSX database in case you're wondering.

Completed result display modules ran to about 300 lines of code not counting the stuff that the IDMSX preprocessor injected. It was generally possible to write, test and debug one of these in a day without working overtime.

=======================

Another factoid that's always fascinated me is that, while programmers vary widely in the number of lines of clean compiled and unit tested code they can write a day, the number of lines any individual can produce a day is almost independent of the programming language used. IOW, most of the productivity gain going from assembler -> high level language -> task specific languages (e.g., a 4GL, PowerBuilder, Perl, awk, ...) is simply due to the fact that you can program a specific task in fewer source lines.

This was discovered by the Lyons Organization, a British mid-20th century Starbucks equivalent, who developed and used the worlds first purpose designed business computer, the LEO series, in the early '50s.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |
.

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