On Mar 4, 2010, at 23:49 , Andrey Fedorov wrote: > Michael Arnoldus wrote: > On Mar 4, 2010, at 15:50 , John Zabroski wrote: >> There are many *forms* of complexity and using just one *metric* seems silly >> to me. > Makes sense. > > So you suggest we should keep saying "complexity" without specifying which > kind we're talking about? No! Pick one form of complexity and find a clear > definition of it. Show its relevance by pointing to data it explains. As long > as we are talking about "complexity" without narrowing it down to one of the > many forms you so wisely point out exist, we're going to be babbling nonsense > with as much result as freshman philosophy majors with a bong.
No. I simply acknowledge that we can use the term complexity in a lot of different contexts for a lot of different purposes and in each of these one *or more* metrics will be sensible. Trying to define or argue on which metric we want to use for complexity without context and purpose seems pointless. So my suggestions was to use complexity in the context of improving programmer (FSE) productivity. And I hinted at some possible measurements that might be useful for this. I however do not in any way pretend this is clear enough to work as a clear definition of complexity or even metrics. And - for me at least - is not clear to me that a single metric will be sufficient with the chosen context and purpose (I'm aware we're not even clear on purpose yet). I'm not able to pick a single definition of complexity that fits my (maybe our?) context and purpose. I suspect that finding the right meaning and definition of complexity in this context is more than half the solution - as it is with most really interesting problems. If you have a suggestion I'm all ears :-) Michael
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