Productivity and error rates for Ada projects

[Dave Jones]

>From article <8221 at hubcap.clemson.edu>, by wtwolfe at hubcap.clemson.edu (Bill Wolfe):
> 
>    From the November 1988 issue of IEEE Software, page 89 ("Large 
>    Ada Projects Show Productivity Gains"): Productivity ranged 
>    from 550 to 704 lines per staff-month at the 1.2-million-line 
>    level -- a sharp contrast with the average productivity of the 
>    1,500 systems in productivity consultant Lawrence Putnam's 
>    database: only 77 lines per staff-month.



Does this mean that if I program in C rather than Ada, I can get
the job done with one nineth the expendature in lines of code? That would
be an improvement, I'll say. Over the last year, programming in C, I've
been turning it out at the rate of 1900 lines a month. If I could get that
down to, say 200, that would be great!

Or does it mean that if I program in Ada rather than C, I'll get nine
times as much real work done? Sign me up. Nine production compilers in a
year. I could make a few bucks at that rate.

Or is it possibly an inherently meaningless statistic, made even more
worthless by a complete lack of controls?

Cut me some slack, Jack.