A) One line of code in one language at a higher level of abstraction might be worth twenty in another language.D) "Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight."
B) A poor programmer might write 10 lines of code when 5 might suffice (not properly re-factoring into functions), or a poor programmer might write 5 lines of code when 10 would be better (example: skipping error checking).
C) A poor programmer might write 50 lines of code, and have to re-write it later because the first time it was done wrong. Does that mean he wrote 100 lines of code, despite only 50 ending up in the final project?
Lines of Coding Per Day
[quote name='3Ddreamer' timestamp='1357852359' post='5020017']
what is the most that you guys have written in a full work day
[/quote]
I've written over a thousand lines in one day while hammering out a large portion of a new project, but it was all useless code that I threw away later thanks to being an over-engineered, brittle, overly-interconnected web of amateurish-
[quote name='3Ddreamer' timestamp='1357852359' post='5020017']
assuming good code with few or no bugs and little at most debugging/rewriting?
[/quote]
Oh. 400ish.
But I still think you're looking at "progress" all wrong. Curiosity is fine, but don't try to gauge your skills based on these numbers.
It really doesn't matter how much you write compared to what you are achieving. A programmers work should not be quantified as labor but rather as a creative process.
1527.5 per day exactly. +142 on rainy days.
(Edit: As I got 2 downvotes I think I`ll rather explain those numbers. I wrote those cause I think the question makes no sense at all. Sometimes you write a lot, sometimes less, and sometimes you throw out some of your code. Plus the result doesnt depend on lines/hour, characters/hour, coffee/hour, etc)
(Edit: As I got 2 downvotes I think I`ll rather explain those numbers. I wrote those cause I think the question makes no sense at all. Sometimes you write a lot, sometimes less, and sometimes you throw out some of your code. Plus the result doesnt depend on lines/hour, characters/hour, coffee/hour, etc)
The amount of code written in a day is meaningless regardless of if you ask for the least or most amount written - frankly any good engineer will spend more of their time thinking than writing code.
I've had tasks where I've spent 2 days just looking at where I'm going to add code and thinking about what I'm going to do without writing a single line.
On the flip side I've had tasks where I've chewed through loads of C# code in a day for throw away tools to process data needed for other tasks.
Heck lines of code varies per language too.
Where I worked previously, my boss was saying that, according to some study, the average number of lines of production code per day from a good developer was about 20[citation needed].
Seems really low, doesn't it? The reason is because when you develop software, you don't just write new code every day. You change code, you remove code, you simplify code, you debug code (this is a big one!), you test code, you design code and program architecture, sit in meetings, etc. You don't just add new code every day. If you were to take the number of lines of code in the final product, and divide it by the number of developers and days, you'll probably get what you think is a disappointingly low number (I've found that 20 to be decently realistic).
Yes, people may write/change hundreds of lines per day, but the gross vs net lines of code can vary a lot. Plus, you really shouldn't be writing code every day (take phantom's little story, for example).
I type 80 WPM / 400 CPM, so that means I can write about 2,400 lines (of 80 characters/each) in a work day if I don't take any breaks! 
But seriously, I like the comment that was made earlier about negative lines of code. That says it all, IMO. I do as much writing as I do deleting and refactoring.
I love to delete code, especially other people's ugly-ass spaghetti grossness, and unfortunately, sometimes my own ("what was I thinking?!")
I can give my personal opinion on this matter, keep in mind this is just an opinion.
Low level languages > 2000
OO languages > 1000
Functional languages > 100
edit: Since personal opinions are not wanted here, I will simply state. Yes, a metric for any measurable thing does not mean anything concrete.
Guys, I have a unique opinion to share about this topic.
How many lines of code you write isn't a good way to measure your coding ability!
...did someone already say that?
This topic is closed to new replies.
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