Programming productivity: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:40, 25 January 2011

Revision as of 01:14, 12 February 2011

Line 22:

Hardware aspects of programmer productivity

It is unfair to measure programmer productivity without factoring in the software and hardware tools that have been providing to the programmers being measured. Example: a programmer with two displays is likely to be more productive than a programmer with a single display. With solid state drives becommingbecoming less expensive, one's hardware can be fine tuned for faster compilation as is required by new development paradigms such as TDD (test driven development).

An extensive literature exists dealing with such issues as software productivity measurement, defect avoidance and removal, and software cost estimation. The heyday of such work was during the 1960s-1980s, when huge mainframe development projects often ran badly behind schedule and over budget. A potpourri of [[software development methodology|development methodologies]] and [[software development tools]] were promulgated, often championed by independent consultants brought in as troubleshooters on critical projects. The [[U.S. Department of Defense]] was responsible for much research and development in this area, as software productivity directly affected large military procurements.