The Shape of Code

It’s 2.5 years since my 2024 post summarizing what I knew about software effort estimation.

Developers working for companies whose business is project based are often involved with multiple projects at the same time.

People buy a computer today because they have a problem that needs to be solved today, or in the near future.

The first commercially produced digital computer, the UNIVAC I, became available in 1951, and by 1961 the exponential annual growth in the number of computers installed was well underway (it may have been earlier, but earlier data is sparse).

This week I was on a virtual meeting of IST/5, the BSI committee responsible for programming language standards in the UK.

Current use of LLMs in software engineering has focused on using them as proficient coding assistants or having them write programs from specifications.

The source code of individual functions is written a particular way by individuals to solve particular problems.

Fault reports are generated by a program’s users, and the extreme difficulty of obtaining any information about how users use a program and number of users makes it almost impossible to do reliable fault prediction.

Version control systems usually include support for classifying each check-in as being a particular instance of some category, e.g., Adaptive, Corrective, Perfective, or Other (this software maintenance category has a long history).

Until April this year there were only two non-trivial publicly available software project datasets (i.e., Sip and CESAW) containing software project data relating to human effort, e.g., people time, elapsed time, and tasks performed.