[Edu-sig] Lines of code and programmer time...

[Dethe Elza]

> I seem to remember hearing a few times about a study somewhere that 
> said
> that programmers produce about the same number of lines of code in a
> given amount of time regardless of the language.  Does anyone know
> anything about this study? (or is it a figment of my imagination? :-(

Paul Graham, in his article "Succinctness is Power"[1] attributes the 
general idea you're talking about to Fred Brooks "The Mythical 
Man-Month."  I don't see a specific quote, however.

In "Patterns of Software," Richard Gabriel makes a important corrolary 
point.  He refers to Compression rather than Succinctness, and compares 
it to the way language is used in poetry to generate multiple meanings. 
  But he warns that compression without habitability (another important 
feature he discusses) leads to write-only languages (I'm paraphrasing 
liberally).  In other words, taking succinctness as the only measure 
leads to Perl %-)

Graham's article is a response to something Paul Prescod wrote, namely, 
"Python's goal is regularity and readability, not succinctness," which 
Graham translates as "Python's goal is regularity and readability, not 
power."  My take on it would be "Python's goals emphasize regularity 
and readability (habitability) over succinctness (compression)."  
Python is extremely succinct compared to Java, C, or C++, but verbose 
compared to Perl or Lisp.  On the other hand, I've found Python to be 
easier to read and comprehend than any of those languages.

HTH

--Dethe