Slashdot Mirror
CPAN: $677 Million of Perl
Adam K writes "It had to happen eventually. CPAN has finally gotten the sloccount treatment, and the results are interesting. At 15.4 million lines of code, CPAN is starting to approach the size of the entire Redhat 6.2 distribution mentioned in David Wheeler's original paper. Could this help explain perl's relatively low position in the SourceForge.net language numbers?"
Low position? For a language that's not suppose to be a full-blown low-level language like C/C++, perl is pretty damn well represented - over 1/3 the number of projects compared to C isn't that bad. If you have just one file, something like sourceforge usually isn't needed.
If you have to ask, you'll never know.
What is more important, lines of code or lines of quality code? People are always so impressed with sheer numbers. Quality is important.
A similar issue is format and structure. You might do something almost right, but it could be better. For example, you might include dates on your web pages but is the format good for users? It can probably be better!
Numbers are only impressive when they are placed in context of their overall utility. Of course, regarding code, measuring "overall utitility" is no joke. Can you really tell that the code from Programmer A is better than Programmer B.
In any event, keep your eyes open. Don't let "15.4 million lines of code" amaze you just because the number is big. Let it amaze you because of what it means, and what those lines of code do for users.
How to Download YouTube Videos
Read the quote carefully: "Anything you need to quanitfy can be measured in some way that is superior to not measuring it at all."
He's not saying that *any* measurement is better than no measurement. He's saying that there exists a measurement that is better than no measurement.
Which tastes better, ice cream or fresh pineapple? I don't know, but rather than say "It's impossible to say! Any measurement will be flawed." You could do a survey and see what most people think tastes better. That may not be the measurement that is better than no measurement, but for certain purposes it may be.
In the end, it depends on what your reason for doing the measurement is. If you're going to be marketing a new bubble gum flavour, then this survey is better than no information at all.