lines of code / number of classes

In the brief certification description there is mention of 3500 lines of code being the average for sucessful assignments.

My question is what constitutes a line of code?

comments?
just a brace?
blank lines?

how many here for example:
<code>

</code>

personally I'd say 1.

On a related point what constitutes a class for similar code stats quoting purposes?

source files only?
all nested classes?
all top level classes?

Thirdly, how many lines and classes (& define these please) have you produced / are likely to produce for your submission?

TIA

Hi Mike
I don't know about whether the code you present is one line or four (comment, code, space, code). I vote for four! Space is important...(It's also ASCII 032--code!).

I think that environments that try to make object-oriented developers feel guilty because they haven't produced a certain number of lines of code are 1) incoherent and 2) evil. I had a CIO who was interested in that once.

I stress _had_.

One can get 6 or 7 lines of code out of an if/else block or 1 line that does the same thing using the ternary operator. So it's not something I think about.

But I did get worried that I was doing too much when I saw (I think on Sun's site) that 3000 lines of code should be about right. I turned out to have about 10000 lines in 75 or so classes. I know a guy who passed with 20 or so classes.

Of course, Sun also says that it shouldn't take more than 100 hours. I spent far longer on it than that.
[ June 24, 2004: Message edited by: Eben Hewitt ]

And I take it you passed?

I'm sure mine will tend to the larger side of the code volume distribution.

Certainly I shall be spending a great deal of time over it. I can't afford to fail it at those prices!