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You only get 1,000 lines of code a week

onebigfluke.com

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Re: You only get 1,000 lines of code a week

#41

Post by ska »

GuiA wrote: post #28
Bahamut wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a senior engineer who has written over 150k loc the past month :( . I have had to tackle some difficult problems that allowed the other engineers to keep moving. My workaround so far has been to do most of the critical work during after hours or before everyone comes in the office, since my primary role during regular hours is to keep everyone unblocked. It isn't sustainable though, and I only do it at the moment…

150 000 lines of code / (10 hours * 5 days * 4 weeks) = a sustained 750 lines of code an hour? That's impressive. Can you share a bit more about how you manage to achieve such productivity for those of us who aspire to be like that?

In my experience aspiring to this would be a mistake.

You can pull off very high production numbers for a while [under whatever metric you choose] before you start babbling in a corner somewhere, but invariably i's mostly crap and you'll end up replacing every 100k lines with 10-20k lines later, but this time it will be well though out, tested, and maintainable.

I've met a few people who have convinced themselves this isn't true, but nobody who has managed to convince anyone else.

So you can paint yourself into a corner where all you can do is crank as fast as your tooling allows, but it's like deficit spending, it will cost you more in the long run than doing it right would. Of course, if having a long run at all to worry about this depends on your current output, crank away.

Re: You only get 1,000 lines of code a week

#42

Post by pm90 »

OK, since a lot of comments here are discussing Software Architecture in general, I would like to ask a question that I've been wanting to for a long time: As a Developer with ~2 years of experience and desiring to be a Software Architect, how do I get there? And by that I mean: how do I develop the talent to design large/complex/distributed software systems, when I'm actually really working on much smaller things on a day-to-day basis? Is it all just something I have to learn in my free time? If so, then how should I go about it?

Re: You only get 1,000 lines of code a week

#43

Post by Someone »

dahart wrote: post #36

1k loc / week sounds like a lot. As a teenager, I got a tour of a company doing contract work for the government making drones. Their manager said they average 12 lines of "final" code per day per engineer over the course of a project. I was stunned and shocked it's so low, but it has stuck with me ever since. After many years more experience, factoring in bug rates and debugging time and meetings and rewrites and al…

Brooks states 200 lines/year, not counting scaffolding and including management and the time spent designing, documenting, and testing.

Seems reasonable for real software (as opposed to 'copy-paste, who cares if the user has to hit F5 once a day?' code) to me.

Re: You only get 1,000 lines of code a week

#46

Post by AznHisoka »

pm90 wrote: post #42

OK, since a lot of comments here are discussing Software Architecture in general, I would like to ask a question that I've been wanting to for a long time: As a Developer with ~2 years of experience and desiring to be a Software Architect, how do I get there? And by that I mean: how do I develop the talent to design large/complex/distributed software systems, when I'm actually really working on much smaller things on…

build your own thing, that's the best way IMO.

Re: You only get 1,000 lines of code a week

#48

Post by therealdrag0 »

pm90 wrote: post #42

OK, since a lot of comments here are discussing Software Architecture in general, I would like to ask a question that I've been wanting to for a long time: As a Developer with ~2 years of experience and desiring to be a Software Architect, how do I get there? And by that I mean: how do I develop the talent to design large/complex/distributed software systems, when I'm actually really working on much smaller things on…

If you can work on a green-field project, you'll get a LOT more experience implementing new things that exercise your architect muscles, and you'll be around architects that you can ask why they are making decisions they are. Versus working on an existing project, where you tend to just fix bugs or figure out how to hack in a new feature without breaking what's there. (I don't know which of these camps you're already in, but in general I think it makes a big difference.) (Disclaimer: I am a jr dev, but see a world of difference between what I get to learn and others at my level because of my project.)

Re: You only get 1,000 lines of code a week

#49

Post by mabbo »

pm90 wrote: post #42

OK, since a lot of comments here are discussing Software Architecture in general, I would like to ask a question that I've been wanting to for a long time: As a Developer with ~2 years of experience and desiring to be a Software Architect, how do I get there? And by that I mean: how do I develop the talent to design large/complex/distributed software systems, when I'm actually really working on much smaller things on…

One would hope your company would be making these investments in you.

As a developer at [Large well-known software company], after my first year I started being given leadership roles in minor stories, then major stories, then epics that breakdown into major stories.

If the company you work for is not giving you growth opportunities, one might begin to wonder how they picture your future.

Side note: "Software Architect" as a role sounds way too Waterfall to me. People should have varying skills at design, and work together to build the best thing they can. Not have an Architect who claims omniscience and designs the whole project up from.

Re: You only get 1,000 lines of code a week

#50

Post by bad_user »

pm90 wrote: post #42

OK, since a lot of comments here are discussing Software Architecture in general, I would like to ask a question that I've been wanting to for a long time: As a Developer with ~2 years of experience and desiring to be a Software Architect, how do I get there? And by that I mean: how do I develop the talent to design large/complex/distributed software systems, when I'm actually really working on much smaller things on…

IMHO, there's no such thing as a Software Architect. Take this for what you will, but people that label themselves as being architects are an instant red flag, as that's usually corporate slang for I'm incompetent, but I can draw diagrams and have meetings.

The industry is simply separated in developers that suck (because they lack either the experience or the ability) and those that don't and that are thus capable of making good decisions.

As to how to get there, there's no simple recipe, but in general you simply have to (1) read a lot, like books, papers, other people's source code and (2) you have to get burned by a lot of bad choices you've made and learn something from those mistakes. Both have something to do with getting out of your comfort zone.

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