RE: Counting Lines of Code - was Job Accounting

Function Point Analysis is a process of assigning function points to
functions, which is then used for predicting development effort.

You could, for example, assign a simple file maintenance program as so many
function points.

A "Work With..." type of program would have so many function points.

Design the app, and then add up the function points to get the development
effort.

Of course, you need to have a "feedback loop" during/after development to
update the function points for a function -- in order to improve future
estimates.

You could, of course, use those same points to gauge productivity. If the
standard function points for a function is "X", and the time required is
"Y", then the efficiency for a programmer to develop the function is
ACTUAL_TIME / Y.

This is cool stuff; Software Metrics fascinates me.

Peace,

-- Don Schenck


-----Original Message-----
From: HwaRangRon@aol.com [mailto:HwaRangRon@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 1999 10:54 AM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Counting Lines of Code - was Job Accounting


>>I doubt that very much.  IBM's method for determining programmer
productivity
 is
 not a strict count but also involves a factor (can't recall what it's
called)
 that normalizes the count based on the "power" of the language.>>

I thought they used something called "Function point analysis". This
technique "weighs" programs based upon complexity, number of files, number
of functions provided by the program, etc. and comes up with a number that
can be used to determine how long it should take to  do any work. 
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