Disadvantages of Lines of Code (LOC)
- Challenges in Agile Work Environments: Focusing on initial LOC estimates may not adequately reflect the iterative and dynamic nature of development in agile development, as requirements may change.
- Not Considering Into Account External Libraries: Code from other libraries or frameworks, which can greatly enhance a project’s overall usefulness, is not taken into account by LOC.
- Challenges with Maintenance: Higher LOC codebases are larger codebases that typically demand more maintenance work.
Research has shown a rough correlation between LOC and the overall cost and length of developing a project/ product in Software Development and between LOC and the number of defects. This means the lower your LOC measurement is, the better off you probably are in the development of your product.
Let’s take an example and check how the Line of code works in the simple sorting program given below:
void selSort(int x[], int n) {
//Below function sorts an array in ascending order
int i, j, min, temp;
for (i = 0; i < n - 1; i++) {
min = i;
for (j = i + 1; j < n; j++)
if (x[j] < x[min])
min = j;
temp = x[i];
x[i] = x[min];
x[min] = temp;
}
}
So, now If LOC is simply a count of the number of lines then the above function shown contains 13 lines of code (LOC). But when comments and blank lines are ignored, the function shown above contains 12 lines of code (LOC).
Let’s take another example and check how does the Line of code work the given below:
void main()
{
int fN, sN, tN;
cout << "Enter the 2 integers: ";
cin >> fN >> sN;
// sum of two numbers in stored in variable sum
sum = fN + sN;
// Prints sum
cout << fN << " + " << sN << " = " << sum;
return 0;
}
Here also, If LOC is simply a count of the numbers of lines then the above function shown contains 11 lines of code (LOC). But when comments and blank lines are ignored, the function shown above contains 9 lines of code (LOC).
Lines of Code (LOC) in Software Engineering
A line of code (LOC) is any line of text in a code that is not a comment or blank line, and also header lines, in any case of the number of statements or fragments of statements on the line. LOC consists of all lines containing the declaration of any variable, and executable and non-executable statements.
Table of Content
- Features of Lines of Code (LOC)
- Advantages of Lines of Code (LOC)
- Disadvantages of Lines of Code (LOC)
As Lines of Code (LOC) only counts the volume of code, you can only use it to compare or estimate projects that use the same language and are coded using the same coding standards.
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