In a message dated 10/2/2007 9:49:58 A.M. Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >More specifically, I'm looking at this from a maintenance perspective. If I give a programmer an existing program to modify, how long on average will it take, per line of code, to analyze the program to then be able to then make necessary changes. It depends on how well documented the existing program is, how complex and well-defined are the necessary changes, and how much the specifications for the changes evolve before the project is finished. I've never heard this metric. Many decades ago I heard ca. 20 lines of new, debugged Assembler code per day per programmer. Someone else posted 17, which is "ca. 20". I once had to add a functional comment to each executable instruction in a set of a set of about 20 Assembler modules for which there was zero documentation and zero comments. All I knew was that the programs worked correctly and I had a general idea of what they all did as a system. It wasn't very hard at all, since each module was only 40 to 50 instructions. I don't remember how long it took me, unfortunately. Bill Fairchild Plainfield, IL
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