Project Questions

On the average 6 month Java project:

How many lines of code does an average Java programmer write per day?

How many programmers work on an average project?

How many classes does an average programmer write on a project?

1) 1,000

2) 17

3) 4

1000 lines a day? Only if you count tests and whatnot. I realize you were just pulling numbers out of, you know what. I don't have any links, but I have seen studies that show that a developer produces less then 20 lines of code a day that will show up in the final product. Off-topic, but am I the only one that thinks that requiring a minimum amount of lines of code per day results in sloppy programming?

It is a strange question. What is an average 6 month project?

An average project? Is there such an animal?

What would take a single developer 6 months, a team of 10 could do in far less time, so the average 6 month project is very dependant on how many developers and the type of project. Not too mention the efficiency of the team and the development process they are using. A team using waterfall won't write any code for quite a while after the project starts. A more agile approach is obviously less time before writing code.

So your questions seem to have circular dependancies.

Read a software estimation book ...

Jack, your questions are impossible to answer.

Java is used for many, many different things, from applications in small, mobile devices, to desktop applications on PCs, to middleware that runs on large, multi-processor servers. People use it to write simple web applications to look into a database, or for very complicated scientific software.

Without any kind of context, it is impossible to say how many lines of code an "average Java programmer" (whatever that is) produces.

In the company that I work for, we do many different Java projects, sometimes small projects with two programmers, sometimes large projects with 30 or more programmers. The answer to a question like "how many programmers work on an average project" isn't very meaningful.

Likewise with your last question.

Also, the quality or fitness-for-purpose of a piece of software cannot be measured in lines of code or number of classes.

What are you after; some kind of general productivity measure for Java programmers?

Originally posted by Rusty Shackleford:
1000 lines a day? Only if you count tests and whatnot. I realize you were just pulling numbers out of, you know what. I don't have any links, but I have seen studies that show that a developer produces less then 20 lines of code a day that will show up in the final product. Off-topic, but am I the only one that thinks that requiring a minimum amount of lines of code per day results in sloppy programming?

I think Svens answer was very tongue-in-cheek. Well, at least I hope so...

I consider that I have had a good day if there are fewer lines of code in the project at the end of the day than when I started.

What kind of programmer only writes 1000 lines of code per day? Nobody goes home from my projects without logging their second LKOC.

I'm actually thinking about the projects where I was a full time programmer, and thinking about the number of real lines of code per day that would go into the finish product. It's actually very hard to estimate.

Cheers!

-Cameron McKenzie

Originally posted by Kameron McKenzie:
What kind of programmer only writes 1000 lines of code per day? Nobody goes home from my projects without logging their second LKOC.

I hope you are just kidding, but just in case you aren't: Those programmers that understand that the best way to increase productivity is to increase the number of lines of code you don't have to write.