Questions tagged [metrics]

Measurable characteristics/attributes related to software and software development process, and anything related to their measurement . For time and space complexity use tag big-O. For other more specific metric question use tag complexity, or cyclomlatic-complexity if appropriate.

Metrics are measurable characteristics/attributes related to software and software development process, such as for example:

  • quality metrics (e.g. defects, performance, reliability, accuracy, ...)
  • structural metrics of the software (e.g. SLOC, coupling, ...)
  • algorithmic metrics (e.g. number of operations)
  • estimation metrics (e.g. function points, story points, ...)
  • testing metrics (e.g. test coverage)
  • documentation metrics
  • work metrics

This tag is for questions related to the metrics themselves, but also about measuring them.

Disambiguation

Use for questions related to the complexity metrics and their calculation.

Use for questions related to time and space complexity and big O notation

Use for questions related specifically to cyclomatic complexity.

Further reading

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Metric by which to hold developers accountable

I asked a question on lines of code per hour and got torn a new one. So my matured follow-up question is this: If not lines of code, then what is a good metric by which to measure (by the hour/day/unit-of-time) the effectiveness of remote…
Kyle Cureau
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Should organizations penalize developers for the amount of defect reports filed against code they worked on?

Should organizations penalize developers for defect reports filed against their work products? I was having a discussion with my friend where he asks if a manager taking the number of defects filed against a developer is justified. My take is no,…
zengr
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Are SMART goals useful for programmers?

Several organisations I know use SMART goals for their programmers. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound. They are fairly common in large corporations. My own prior experience with SMART goals has not…
Craig Schwarze
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Are there known valid uses of SLOC to measure productivity?

I had an unusual, brief conversation with a very senior architect about dynamic and static languages. He said that company data shows that there is evidence for higher productivity when static languages are used. Note, it's a large company with long…
sevo
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What does the 'cyclomatic complexity' of my code mean?

I am new to static analysis of code. My application has a Cyclomatic complexity of 17,754. The application itself is only 37,672 lines of code. Is it valid to say that the complexity is high based on the lines of code? What exactly is the Cyclomatic…
AngryBird
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Is the average number of bugs per loc the same for different programming languages?

I have been told that the average number of bugs/defects per line of code is "constant" for different programming languages. 10 KLOC of Ruby would have the same number of bugs as 10 KLOC of c++. The argument is usually used to promote the use of…
Kristian
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What are useful metrics for source code?

What are useful metrics to capture for source code? How can metrics, like for example (Executable?) Lines of Code or Cyclomatic Complexity help with quality assurance or how are they beneficial in general for the software development process?
cschol
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Cyclomatic Complexity Ranges

What are the categories of cyclomatic complexity? For example: 1-5: easy to maintain 6-10: difficult 11-15: very difficult 20+: approaching impossible For years now, I've gone with the assumption that 10 was the limit. And anything beyond that is…
Bob Horn
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What is a normal "functional lines of code" to "test lines of code" ratio?

I'm pretty new to TDD approach and my first experiments say that writing 1 line of functional code means writing about 2-3 lines of testing code. So, in case I'm going to write 1000 LOC, the whole codebase including tests is going to be something…
Andrey Agibalov
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What criteria should be used to determine a programmer's salary?

Recently, I was a part of a discussion about which criteria should be used when determining a salary for a programmer: arguments varied from "it is a matter of employer's choice" to other arguments that took into account one's education, experience,…
Maggie
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Is software testing actually done on professional projects?

I've been involved with many projects in several companies because I've been a developer for a long time and I'm a contractor. I estimate that less than 20% of projects are methodically tested. With methodically tested I mean any testing beyond…
Robert Koritnik
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What personal milestones can you use to measure growth in your programming abilities?

How can you determine objectively, over time, that you are getting any better at producing code? For example, I may sit here and feel that "I know now, and I use now, so I must be better." But this does not account for my…
GWLlosa
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How does one meaningfully measure maintainability?

Context: I'm an enterprise developer in an all-MS shop. Can anyone recommend a good way of objectively measuring maintainability of a piece of code or an application? Why maintainability: I'm tired of "quality" metrics in my group revolving only…
nlawalker
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How is software scalability measured?

I was asked to make some small technical presentation about specific application scalability. The application is developed using Java, Spring MVC, Hibernate. I have access to the application source code. How can I measure software scalability (using…
artjom
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How to quantify Code Quality

My Business unit has huge number of developers (About 100). Due to various reasons, the developers are nearly solely focused on delivery rather than quality. The bad quality code has already started hurting us. The bugs have become difficult to…
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