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People misunderstand it. It means writing code, documentation, testing, bug fixing etc. I'm not sure it is that far off over several years. If you look at Goog

People misunderstand it. It means writing code, documentation, testing, bug fixing etc. I'm not sure it is that far off over several years. If you look at Google, and say there are 52 * 5 days * 10 lines of code, 2600 lines of code per developer. Extrapolate that to 20 years times how many developers and list on code that is currently used, would it be that far out? People over-estimate the sustainability of short term coding lines per day, versus multi-year coding.

google234123 7y ago
Sorry but you won't get much done only writing 10 lines of code per day.
andrewstuart 7y ago
>>>People misunderstand it. It means writing code, documentation, testing, bug fixing etc. Are you sure about that? I don't think so. I have not read it for years, but my vague recollection of The Mythical Man Month is that 10 lines a day as a full time professional programmer is a reasonable expectation if you are writing IBM mainframe operating systems in assembly language in the 1970s. It not meant to be saying that hey a programmer is busy with lots of other things like testing documentation etc. Brooks actually meant it, and it was true, at the time, with 1970s hardware, with 1970s development tools, with 1970s collaboration, 1970s compilers/assemblers, 1970s source control, with 1970s level of understanding of computers and software, with 1970s waterfall style project management. And, critically, writing your 10 lines as part of a (relatively speaking) gigantic project for the time. Back then projects did not come much bigger than writing an operating system. Can you imagine trying to get your bit written of some gigantic project where probably no-one has any idea what the fuck is going on, where the source code is, what version is what, who is working on what and how its all meant to tie together. The miracle is that they could get any operating system at all written. Many, many operating system projects failed entirely in the 1970's and 1980's. I'm happy to be proven wrong, cause as I say I haven't read that book for a long long time.
kjksf 7y ago
No, we don't misunderstand it. 10 lines per day is just rubbish. Here's an example: https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf is code written by 2 people (me and another guy). It's written, documented, tested and bug fixed. It's 110k lines of code. And it's tight. Good luck removing 10k lines of code and not loosing any functionality. Assuming 10 lines per day and round-the-clock 365 days of working, that's 30 man-years of work. 15 years for 2 people. I didn't spend 15 years writing it. It's a part-time effort over 10 years. The 10 lines per day is off by at least an order of magnitued. And I don't claim to be spectacularly productive. Jonathan Blow wrote 90k lines of code for Braid in 1 or 2 years.
- majewsky 7y ago
  > 10 lines per day is just rubbish. For you. For the average developer, on the large scale, I think it is closer to the truth than you'd think.
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  2 people is a pretty small project and by the looks of it it probably didn't involved nearly as much coordination as most large business apps. I also imagine you didn't have to do much coordination with project managers, qa, business analysts, architects, other devs, etc. When I worked on a big project (several million lines of code) I routinely would code less than 10 lines per day.
- pgt 7y ago
  It sounds like you wrote 20-30 lines per day part-time over 10 years, which is within an order of magnitude of 10 lines per day for the average developer. Sounds about right to me?
  - nudpiedo 7y ago
    I also think that's correct, regarding the order of magnitude, familiarity with the topic... the 10 lines a day (order of magnitude) could perhaps make more sense from a perspective of cognitive overload.
- 7y ago

google234123 7y ago

Sorry but you won't get much done only writing 10 lines of code per day.

andrewstuart 7y ago

>>>People misunderstand it. It means writing code, documentation, testing, bug fixing etc. Are you sure about that? I don't think so. I have not read it for years, but my vague recollection of The Mythical Man Month is that 10 lines a day as a full time professional programmer is a reasonable expectation if you are writing IBM mainframe operating systems in assembly language in the 1970s. It not meant to be saying that hey a programmer is busy with lots of other things like testing documentation etc. Brooks actually meant it, and it was true, at the time, with 1970s hardware, with 1970s development tools, with 1970s collaboration, 1970s compilers/assemblers, 1970s source control, with 1970s level of understanding of computers and software, with 1970s waterfall style project management. And, critically, writing your 10 lines as part of a (relatively speaking) gigantic project for the time. Back then projects did not come much bigger than writing an operating system. Can you imagine trying to get your bit written of some gigantic project where probably no-one has any idea what the fuck is going on, where the source code is, what version is what, who is working on what and how its all meant to tie together. The miracle is that they could get any operating system at all written. Many, many operating system projects failed entirely in the 1970's and 1980's. I'm happy to be proven wrong, cause as I say I haven't read that book for a long long time.

kjksf 7y ago

No, we don't misunderstand it. 10 lines per day is just rubbish. Here's an example: https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf is code written by 2 people (me and another guy). It's written, documented, tested and bug fixed. It's 110k lines of code. And it's tight. Good luck removing 10k lines of code and not loosing any functionality. Assuming 10 lines per day and round-the-clock 365 days of working, that's 30 man-years of work. 15 years for 2 people. I didn't spend 15 years writing it. It's a part-time effort over 10 years. The 10 lines per day is off by at least an order of magnitued. And I don't claim to be spectacularly productive. Jonathan Blow wrote 90k lines of code for Braid in 1 or 2 years.

majewsky 7y ago
> 10 lines per day is just rubbish. For you. For the average developer, on the large scale, I think it is closer to the truth than you'd think.
JamesBarney 7y ago
2 people is a pretty small project and by the looks of it it probably didn't involved nearly as much coordination as most large business apps. I also imagine you didn't have to do much coordination with project managers, qa, business analysts, architects, other devs, etc. When I worked on a big project (several million lines of code) I routinely would code less than 10 lines per day.
pgt 7y ago
It sounds like you wrote 20-30 lines per day part-time over 10 years, which is within an order of magnitude of 10 lines per day for the average developer. Sounds about right to me?
- nudpiedo 7y ago
  I also think that's correct, regarding the order of magnitude, familiarity with the topic... the 10 lines a day (order of magnitude) could perhaps make more sense from a perspective of cognitive overload.
7y ago