4 ms·

Last 50 years? Have you studied Software Engineering? They discuss LOC in depth and many academic papers on KLOC are in SE literature.

chickenzzzzu 2y ago
I can write a program that is 1,000,000 lines of code, and a program that is 200 lines of code, and to the end user they would be doing the same thing. Now, if you start establishing some rules about the type of code I'm allowed to write, then your statement becomes truer. But by no means do people actually follow that in the real world all the time.
- atomicnumber3 2y ago
  You're the only person confused about what's meant by LOC here
- pests 2y ago
  The number was given just so we have a sense of scale of the project being talked about. Its not a competition nor are measures being made. If you wrote a program that is 1,000,000 lines of code you could also write a blog post about your thoughts on "writing 1,000,000 lines of code". You could also write a program that is 200 lines long and write a blog post about "writing 200 lines of code". One is not better than the others, you are just informing your audience of the topic under discussion.
- otikik 2y ago
  You can assume the measurement is “Lines of Code that matter” then.
- TJSomething 2y ago
  Sure, but, assuming you are actually only counting lines of code and not whitespace or comments, if that end user asks for a new feature, it's probably going to be a lot easier to figure out where to put it in 200 lines than in 1,000,000 lines.
- viccis 2y ago
  >I can write a program that is 1,000,000 lines of code, and a program that is 200 lines of code, and to the end user they would be doing the same thing. I think most conversations around LOC assume that it's not an idiot writing it, and I think in general, this is a good assumption to use when it comes to code discussions.
- Vegenoid 2y ago
  To an end user those programs may be the same, but to a software engineer working on the programs they are very different. It’s not a great metric. But it does communicate something about the scale and complexity of a codebase.

chickenzzzzu 2y ago

I can write a program that is 1,000,000 lines of code, and a program that is 200 lines of code, and to the end user they would be doing the same thing. Now, if you start establishing some rules about the type of code I'm allowed to write, then your statement becomes truer. But by no means do people actually follow that in the real world all the time.

atomicnumber3 2y ago
You're the only person confused about what's meant by LOC here
pests 2y ago
The number was given just so we have a sense of scale of the project being talked about. Its not a competition nor are measures being made. If you wrote a program that is 1,000,000 lines of code you could also write a blog post about your thoughts on "writing 1,000,000 lines of code". You could also write a program that is 200 lines long and write a blog post about "writing 200 lines of code". One is not better than the others, you are just informing your audience of the topic under discussion.
otikik 2y ago
You can assume the measurement is “Lines of Code that matter” then.
TJSomething 2y ago
Sure, but, assuming you are actually only counting lines of code and not whitespace or comments, if that end user asks for a new feature, it's probably going to be a lot easier to figure out where to put it in 200 lines than in 1,000,000 lines.
viccis 2y ago
>I can write a program that is 1,000,000 lines of code, and a program that is 200 lines of code, and to the end user they would be doing the same thing. I think most conversations around LOC assume that it's not an idiot writing it, and I think in general, this is a good assumption to use when it comes to code discussions.
Vegenoid 2y ago
To an end user those programs may be the same, but to a software engineer working on the programs they are very different. It’s not a great metric. But it does communicate something about the scale and complexity of a codebase.