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> Number of lines of code has been shown to be one of the few good indicators for predicting defects. Curious - is there evidence that that applies in a cross-
by AlisdairO 14y ago
> Number of lines of code has been shown to be one of the few good indicators for predicting defects.
Curious - is there evidence that that applies in a cross-language manner? It seems intuitively sensible that a smaller project will have fewer bugs than a big project, but that's not the same as saying that a big project rewritten in a language which causes fewer lines of code to be used will result in fewer bugs - in the latter case, the systemic complexity is the same.
- btilly 14y agoThe answer is yes. The research suggests that the rate of development and the error rate are both linearly correlated with length of code rather than how much the program does, and this rate seems fairly consistent across a range of languages. I believe that Code Complete makes reference to this fact. From a random Google search, http://panko.shidler.hawaii.edu/HumanErr/ http://panko.shidler.hawaii.edu/HumanErr/ would seem like a promising online resource to try to find some of the literature on error rates.
- AlisdairO 14y agointeresting - thanks!