tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7030997386028100204.post4165891792803107828..comments2009-12-13T18:29:17.612-08:00Rajesh Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11070763300226168187noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7030997386028100204.post-27088994812831136812008-10-21T05:30:00.000-07:002008-10-21T05:30:00.000-07:00I agree with evan's conclusion - this could be a great methodology that could improve the quality of code but it could also make it unreadable. There are plenty of high quality code principles that requires additional 2 or 3 rows but increase the readability a lot. Therefore lines of code are subjective factor of evaluation after all.Mariohttp://peshev.net/blognoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7030997386028100204.post-7119181820811447452008-10-20T19:13:00.000-07:002008-10-20T19:13:00.000-07:00Good post.<BR/><BR/>While it may be difficult to come up with accurate stats, it's still a great mindset to get developers and their managers to embrace. <BR/><BR/>The inability to codify this is probably a good thing, since hard stats might even have a negative effect, in terms of developers going overboard with perl-like expressions (<A HREF="http://app.fonality.com/golf/index.htm" REL="nofollow">perl golf</A>). <BR/><BR/>Another way we kill code and get additional benefit is when we apply the DRY principle.<BR/><BR/>I think you need a better name though. It's hard to pronounce dloc. How about "kloc"? As in how many lines of code have you kloc'd today?Carlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10095935975865795803noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7030997386028100204.post-40271147181506702772008-10-20T18:34:00.000-07:002008-10-20T18:34:00.000-07:00Evan,<BR/>Well said. As I pointed out in the posting, this metric is not a good measure of productivity either - but its certainly more fun to measure for your own amusement and sense of accomplishment.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps in the future when an unenlightened manager berates you about the importance of metrics, you can ask them to measure DLOC as well. Then maybe they can see how too much focus on metrics detracts from the goal - good software.Jay Meyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02158043537042803017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7030997386028100204.post-90057487531149661742008-10-20T18:08:00.000-07:002008-10-20T18:08:00.000-07:00http://msr.uwaterloo.ca/<BR/><BR/>The mining software community has found that removing code is actually much more rare than adding. So looking at code removed is like looking at rare events. So it is often worthwhile.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7030997386028100204.post-24413085928496638752008-10-20T14:10:00.000-07:002008-10-20T14:10:00.000-07:00A good post and a novel idea. We all like to remove bad code. Unfortunately, when we do have to add functionality we do have to add code.<BR/><BR/>I think we should ignore the fact that all metrics can be hacked. If people care more about hacking metrics than about using them properly, they are of no use to anyone.<BR/><BR/>So my problem is, how do you measure destroyed lines of code when we are adding more code? I think a metric is useful only if I can calculate it easily and if I can understand what it is saying.<BR/><BR/>If the version control system could give a measure of this (like repository churn - # of lines added, modified and deleted) we might be able to make sense of all this. Currently, I my SCM (Perforce) does not give me this information (although I have never really made an effort to ask).<BR/><BR/>It is true that everyone is happy when we can say we deleted a bunch of complex code, so it would be nice to have a measurement for this. So other than calculating SLOC and hoping that it decreases, how do we measure DLOC?Dennis Sellingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17039039318920378800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7030997386028100204.post-79460873369012574112008-10-20T12:13:00.000-07:002008-10-20T12:13:00.000-07:00I agree with your basic premise that removing lines of code can help a system. Unfortunently all metrics can gamed and this is no exception. <BR/><BR/>What happens when they remove all the whitespace in their code? What happens when the remove all the comments? It requires sophisticated parsing to determine if each line contains only one "programming action". And it is currently impossible for a computer to determine if comments were valuable or not. <BR/><BR/>In the end I believe it comes down to human managers reading the code their team produces and making a judgement calls. This metric could inform that decision but it doesn't hold on its own.<BR/><BR/>Good post!Evannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7030997386028100204.post-19537404112070915472008-10-20T09:20:00.000-07:002008-10-20T09:20:00.000-07:00Hi,<BR/><BR/>Nice article.I even enjoy deleting code some times.Prashant Jalasutramhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02049809664724727115noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7030997386028100204.post-61079973741571893792008-10-20T05:54:00.000-07:002008-10-20T05:54:00.000-07:00This is a great article. I was just telling a co-worker last week that I enjoyed deleting code almost as much as writing it.Rajesh Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11070763300226168187noreply@blogger.com