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GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
honey the codewitch25-Jul-19 3:10
mvahoney the codewitch25-Jul-19 3:10 
GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
Slacker00725-Jul-19 3:16
professionalSlacker00725-Jul-19 3:16 
GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
kmoorevs25-Jul-19 4:54
kmoorevs25-Jul-19 4:54 
GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
kalberts25-Jul-19 5:06
kalberts25-Jul-19 5:06 
GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
Mike Hankey25-Jul-19 6:43
mveMike Hankey25-Jul-19 6:43 
GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
dandy7225-Jul-19 7:13
dandy7225-Jul-19 7:13 
GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
Rene Balvert25-Jul-19 22:09
Rene Balvert25-Jul-19 22:09 
GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
dshillito25-Jul-19 23:54
dshillito25-Jul-19 23:54 
My whole career was spent programming. My first full-time job after university was in 1972, aged 21. I retired in 2017, aged 66. So I worked for around 45 years. I used to count lines of code at various points and my estimate was that I created around 30,000 lines of debugged production code per year. In the early days it was assembly code. Later it was Pascal, C, C++, Java, VB, C#, Objective C, etc. I think the line count remained the same. I was just more productive in the more recent technologies. So whereas my 30000 lines of assembler code for a PDP11 might have occupied 64KB and was the only code running in the machine (no operating system), my final applications occupied tens or hundreds of megabytes, especially with all of the libraries they brought in.

So if I did 30,000 LOC per year for 45 years I must have produced well over one million LOC in my career.

And thinking back on the last 2 decades I would say that at least 300,000 of those lines are still in production: 1 desktop app, several Android apps, 1 IOS app and a good proportion of a SAAS webserver-based app.

I do not think I ever wrote 10000 lines in a day, even on my most productive day. I guess I often did 1000 or more, especially when it involves a lot of copy/paste/edit. But that was balanced by other days where the emphasis was on meetings, planning, testing, debugging etc. I find it hard to believe that anyone personally (i.e without machine aid) created 10 million or more LOC in a career. E.g. 45 years of 40 hour weeks and ignoring holidays is only 336 million seconds so 10 million LOC would mean creating one line every 33.6 seconds.

modified 26-Jul-19 6:07am.

GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
Member 1181677626-Jul-19 0:07
Member 1181677626-Jul-19 0:07 
GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
kalberts26-Jul-19 2:18
kalberts26-Jul-19 2:18 
GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
Slow Eddie26-Jul-19 2:41
professionalSlow Eddie26-Jul-19 2:41 
GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
Mike (Prof. Chuck)26-Jul-19 3:10
professionalMike (Prof. Chuck)26-Jul-19 3:10 
GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
Slow Eddie26-Jul-19 3:27
professionalSlow Eddie26-Jul-19 3:27 
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Mike (Prof. Chuck)26-Jul-19 4:09
professionalMike (Prof. Chuck)26-Jul-19 4:09 
GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
Slow Eddie26-Jul-19 4:51
professionalSlow Eddie26-Jul-19 4:51 
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Gerry Schmitz26-Jul-19 12:48
mveGerry Schmitz26-Jul-19 12:48 
GeneralRe: How many lines-of-code does a developer write (life time)? Pin
Member 1293859026-Jul-19 15:13
Member 1293859026-Jul-19 15:13 
GeneralCCC Pin
pkfox24-Jul-19 21:57
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PeejayAdams24-Jul-19 23:03
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pkfox24-Jul-19 23:10
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GeneralJust because... Pin
the goat in your machine24-Jul-19 19:11
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GeneralRe: Just because... Pin
OriginalGriff24-Jul-19 19:22
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the goat in your machine24-Jul-19 19:57
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