A while ago, I looked at code productivity on my current project. To add a bit more data, here are three snapshots from my previous work at Argonne. Anecdotal, and perhaps not flattering, but interesting enough to share. Click the images for the full data set - you can explore.

First project is C code, using POSIX threads, that moves data between a LabVIEW-based data acquisition system and a Java-based streaming server. Pretty basic stuff - command line parsing, worker thread and connection management, a bit of logging, most of the code is in the error handling.

Gotta start strong - pretty nice. High initial progress due to importing code (messaging library and some code I wrote at Fermilab for sockets), stabilized rapidly and refactored a bit to cleanup code. The initial ‘mad coding phase’ was some of my fastest work, climbing from ~1500 lines to 4500 lines 2 months! Damn.

Second project is Java based, plugin code for Globus 3-based-server that controlled stepper motors, cameras and servohydraulics. More complex to write, but depends on a container to run, and my role here was less.

Here the code grew fast, but I had a trivial 1303 lines total. In my defense, some of this was at the same time as the previous project, so not too shabby.

Next project is a collection of Java programs that read, write and process data from a DataTurbine server. MJPEG drivers, data acquisition systems, etc.

Lots and lots of code, mostly by the awesome Terry Weymouth. He was fantastic to work with, as you can see here - consistent progress all the time, and always able to burst more for a deadline.

Despite the well-known weaknesses of ‘lines of code’ as a metric, I find it fascinating to see measurements on work I know or did. It still has some value to show the progress of the project, and how the code is done. For example, only on the C code is there significant removal of code, showing cleanup and refactoring.

Cool stuff. This was all produced by StatCVS, which automatically parses a CVS archive. Hey, it was years ago, and CVS was still a viable choice. ;)