Understanding developer and manager perceptions of function points and source lines of code

  • Authors:

  • Steven D. Sheetz;David Henderson;Linda Wallace

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Accounting and Information Systems, Pamplin College of Business, 3007 Pamplin Hall (Mailcode 0101), Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, United States;Department of Accounting and Legal Studies, School of Business and Economics, College of Charleston, 5 Liberty Street, Suite 400, Charleston, SC 29401, United States;Department of Accounting and Information Systems, Pamplin College of Business, 3007 Pamplin Hall (Mailcode 0101), Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, United States

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Systems and Software
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Although function points (FP) are considered superior to source lines of code (SLOC) for estimating software size and monitoring developer productivity, practitioners still commonly use SLOC. One reason for this is that individuals who fill different roles on a development team, such as managers and developers, may perceive the benefits of FP differently. We conducted a survey to determine whether a perception gap exists between managers and developers for FP and SLOC across several desirable properties of software measures. Results suggest managers and developers perceive the benefits of FP differently and indicate that developers better understand the benefits of using FP than managers.