3 ms·
First: not badgering you :) We all know that lines of code is a poor measure of code complexity We certainly don't! Program length is the only good measure we
by gruseom 15y ago
First: not badgering you :)
We all know that lines of code is a poor measure of code complexity
We certainly don't! Program length is the only good measure we have. The best measure of program length is up for grabs, but LOC is probably as good as any (there was a big thread about this a few months ago).
But I would bet that my definition of complexity, aka "interaction space", would correlate much stronger to error rate than LOC does
But the best work on this points to so exactly the opposite of what you say, I would really recommend you take a look at it: http://www.neverworkintheory.org/?p=58 http://www.neverworkintheory.org/?p=58 - and tell us what you think.
I'm going away now.
- hackinthebochs 15y agoGood link. The thing that stands out to me about the standard code metrics used in studies like this, is that they attempt to measure actual complexity, rather than perceived complexity. LOC perhaps is the only measure that directly measures perceived complexity. If I add 100 lines of code to my project, its possible that cyclomatic complexity stays constant (I didn't add any branches, just a straight fall through), but the perception of complexity no doubt increased. If we can come up with more metrics that are based on our perception of a codebase's complexity, I think we would see interesting results.