

How much do you pay per line of code? - yegor256a
http://www.xdsd.org/2014/04/11/cost-of-loc.html

======
tetha
So. I have recently spent about 5 full focussed days to crank out about 1k -
4k lines of code (can't check at the moment, vacation), which will save our
operations team at least 3-4 full days per month. How much will each line of
cost count? 4k / (my hourly payment * 40 hours)? 4k / ((my hourly payment -
the average hourly payment of our operational team) * 40 hours)?

What about we include the fact that the new system is less frustrating to
operate than the last one? What about the fact that the new system is more
stable and saves frustration and plain time (since it just works and people
don't get blocked in their workflow) in our software development team?

So, overall, point being: I don't see it feasible, or even possible, to
calculate the full monetary impact of a line of code in a medium to large
company.

~~~
yegor256a
Of course, sometimes a complex algorithm takes just a page of a text, but a
month of work. However, the projects mentioned in the article were not
inventing any algorithms. They were developing business software, according to
formal requirements.

------
dalke
The variability in LOC is so high that no interesting conclusions can be
drawn.

For example, [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/966800/mythical-man-
month...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/966800/mythical-man-
month-10-lines-per-developer-day-how-close-on-large-projects) reports projects
ranging from +200 LOC/day to -6,000 LOC/day.

Nor is development cost linear in the number of lines of code. The 200kLOC
across 5 languages is not simply 6.3x more complicated than 30k lines across 2
languages.

FWIW, Primary Avionics System Software for the Space Shuttle cost NASA
slightly over $1,000 per line.

~~~
yegor256a
Well, I've drawn an interesting conclusion though :) First, the article is
talking about "lines changed", which includes new lines and deleted lines.
Second, both products mentioned in the article are of the same complexity,
even though they use different languages: PHP stack vs. Java stack. But I
appreciate your feedback :)

~~~
dalke
It's a conclusion which cannot be applied to any other situation. That makes
it an uninteresting conclusion.

"both products mentioned in the article are of the same complexity". Where
does the essay say that, and how is it measured? Since SLOC and number of
required programming languages are larger, it's pretty clear to me that they
don't have the same complexity.

