Programming productivity: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:40, 6 July 2012

Revision as of 14:56, 21 September 2012

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Hardware aspects of programmer productivity

It is unfair to measure programmer productivity without factoring in the software and hardware tools that have been providingprovided 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 becoming 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.