I've had that letter to the editor posted outside my office for several days now, should've mentioned it here. Thanks Karl! BTW, the URL for CrossTalk is: http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/CrossTalk/crostalk.html The letter itself is at http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/CrossTalk/1998/oct/letters.html Marc A. Criley Chief Software Architect Lockheed Martin ATWCS [log in to unmask] Phone: (610) 354-7861 Fax : (610) 354-7308 -- Karl A. Nyberg wrote: > > >From the Letter to the Editor, Crosstalk: The Journal of Defense Software > Engineering, October 1998: > > ... > > In an article aimed at metrics novices, it is very important to > point out some of th eknown hazards of software metrics. The fact > that lines of code can't be used to measure economic p roductivity > is definitely a known hazard that should be stressed. > > In a comparative study of 10 version of the same period using 10 > different programming languages (Ada 83, Ada95, C, C++, Objective C, > PL/I, Assembler, CHILL, Pascal and Smalltalk), the lines of code > metric failed to show either the highest productivity or best > quality. Overall the lowest cost and fewest defects were found in > Smalltalk and Ada95, but the lines of code metric favored > assembler. Function points correctly identified Smalltalk and Ada95 > as being superior, but lines of code failed to do this. > > Capers Jones > Software Productivity Reserach > > OK, guys - spin it! > > -- Karl --