Re: [GNU-COBOL] Lines of code

[Tim Josling <tej@melbpc.org.au>]

After I sent the email I realised I would probably get a response
like this. 

You are absolutely right about lines of code being of limited
use. Languages vary greatly in the lines of code per unit of
actual value delivered. Programmers vary even more so. That's why
I didn't say we have x lines of code and Fortran was y so we are
8.2% of the way there.


My intent was to illustrate the size of the task, and to point
out that there is a lot of work that can be done in parallel and
in my view should be done in parallel. The main thing is to get a
good framework in place that can allow many people to contribute
in parallel. Whether it's three years or ten years - and it may
well be ten years - it's still a lot of work.

I guess on the parser side I will have to 'learn by my own
mistakes' as King Lear said all fools must do... Bison is fine
for the preprocessor, with a bit of extra code wrapped around it.
Have you come to a conclusion about what capabilities the parser
needs to parse COBOL? From my example of identifier, any LR(k)
parser will not do, it would seem you need a back-tracking parser
(ie slow). I have no knowledge of what's out there beyond LALR(1)
parsers. I have found a couple of bugs in bison, so I would be
very cautious of picking something even more off the beaten
track, 

Tim Josling


Chad Slaughter wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> I've been busy and Luara has been out of town so the reply is kinda late.
> sorry about that.
> 
> Tim Josling wrote :>
> 
> [Lines of Code crap d-keyed]
> 
> I shouldnt grace this with a response, but ...
> 
> Lines of code is a meaningless measure of quantity.
> 
> It says NOTHING about quality or functionality.
> 
> [...]
> >lines on average. This would still make it a three man year
> >project. This
> 
> I think this is a major underestimate. I estimated the project on
> the order or 8-10 man yrs, (inside joke ahead)
> With Luara as the man of course. =)
>

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