Code Counting

[Mango24]

Hello
I am on a metrics project with my company and one aspect is to demonstrate we can build applications faster and of better quality. For this we’ll calculate an industry benchmark, which you may have heard of called the Productivity Index. However, for it’s algorithm we need to identify the number of new, modified and unmodified source lines of code for the applications being developed.

We’ve been researching code counting tools on the web and for projects using technologies such as Java and Cobol. It’s been a little bit more straightforward and we’ve found a lot of information.

However, we’re finding it difficult find information on how we would determine and count the number of new, modified and unmodified source lines of code for ERP applications such as Siebel, SAP and Peoplesoft

Is there any way of doing this or if not how do you measure efficiency and performance?

Thanks

 

[BlackBeltJim]

Sounds like an interesting project. I know nothing about Siebel and PeopleSoft, but SAP has complete version control and tools to compare programs. I suppose you could write a custom program to supply the details you are looking for.

Lines-of-code is almost worthless taken alone but I like compare them to lines-of-documentation. I wrote a simple SAP tool to do that and it is fun to compare that ratio among programmers. That says a lot about a programmer.

Discussions about programmer Performance and Efficiency are volatile and bellicose. Quantifying "programmers" is a management and academic mirage. When it serves one purpose, programmers are categorized as "blue-collar" service workers, then another time as "creative artists". Experience is the best qualifier to gauge programmers value than than academic formulas and theories.