It's just a title designed to gain attention. When I skimmed the article, I saw it contend that there are more PHP programmers and more PHP code than Ruby programmers and code. Wow..there's some groundbreaking research. *back to work*
"... this article is getting some digg love right now, thanks to its contentious title. Unfortunately the stats it quotes are completely ridiculous. The main claim is that 5 times more lines of code are being contributed in open source projects in PHP than in Ruby. The author misses the point that this might be because it takes 5 times more LOC to do the same thing in PHP as it does in Ruby. My personal experience is that the factor is more like 10-15 times more lines than in Ruby. Ruby style emphasises elegant one-liners.
What’s more “Web 2.0 is being built in PHP” is a moronic statement to make given that most “Web 2.0” applications are close-sourced and therefore not included in the stats. Thankfully they gain some sanity towards the end by pointing out the growth in open source Ruby projects is much higher than those in PHP project, but they’re not prepared to do the basic maths to realise that in fact, PHP is dying relative to Ruby."
http://vagueware.com/2006/10/22/sunday-headlines-22nd-october-2006
Like you said, 'back to work'. 
Adding more fuel to the fire, I recalled that someone had run sloloccount on Rails a long time ago and it produced surprising results. Here is a run on edge:
Total Physical Source Lines of Code (SLOC) = 62,274
Development Effort Estimate, Person-Years (Person-Months) = 15.31 (183.75)
(Basic COCOMO model, Person-Months = 2.4 * (KSLOC**1.05))
Schedule Estimate, Years (Months) = 1.51 (18.13)
(Basic COCOMO model, Months = 2.5 * (person-months**0.38))
Estimated Average Number of Developers (Effort/Schedule) = 10.14
Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 2,068,539
(average salary = $56,286/year, overhead = 2.40).
SLOCCount, Copyright (C) 2001-2004 David A. Wheeler
SLOCCount is Open Source Software/Free Software, licensed under the GNU GPL.
SLOCCount comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, and you are welcome to
redistribute it under certain conditions as specified by the GNU GPL license;
see the documentation for details.
Please credit this data as “generated using David A. Wheeler’s ‘SLOCCount’.”
Compared to a PHP framework I created
Total Physical Source Lines of Code (SLOC) = 41,755
Development Effort Estimate, Person-Years (Person-Months) = 10.06 (120.77)
(Basic COCOMO model, Person-Months = 2.4 * (KSLOC**1.05))
Schedule Estimate, Years (Months) = 1.29 (15.46)
(Basic COCOMO model, Months = 2.5 * (person-months**0.38))
Estimated Average Number of Developers (Effort/Schedule) = 7.81
Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 1,359,520
(average salary = $56,286/year, overhead = 2.40).
SLOCCount, Copyright (C) 2001-2004 David A. Wheeler
SLOCCount is Open Source Software/Free Software, licensed under the GNU GPL.
SLOCCount comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, and you are welcome to
redistribute it under certain conditions as specified by the GNU GPL license;
see the documentation for details.
Please credit this data as “generated using David A. Wheeler’s ‘SLOCCount’.”
I know what my framework does and it doesn’t do half what Rails does. One inference is that by COCOMO estimates, which are relatively well thought of, two somewhat similar projects show that Rails appears to defy the statistics. It is important to emphasize that fact: Ruby and Rails do not fit metrics based on LOC and it’s somewhat dubious whether the other projects I’ve measured fit well either.
Does anyone use this tool and can anyone illuminate this interpretation?
s.ross wrote:
Adding more fuel to the fire, I recalled that someone had run sloloccount on Rails a long time ago and it produced surprising results. Here is a run on edge:
Total Physical Source Lines of Code (SLOC) = 62,274 Development Effort Estimate, Person-Years (Person-Months) = 15.31 (183.75) (Basic COCOMO model, Person-Months = 2.4 * (KSLOC**1.05)) Schedule Estimate, Years (Months) = 1.51 (18.13) (Basic COCOMO model, Months = 2.5 * (person-months**0.38)) Estimated Average Number of Developers (Effort/Schedule) = 10.14 Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 2,068,539 (average salary = $56,286/year, overhead = 2.40). SLOCCount, Copyright (C) 2001-2004 David A. Wheeler SLOCCount is Open Source Software/Free Software, licensed under the GNU GPL. SLOCCount comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions as specified by the GNU GPL license; see the documentation for details. Please credit this data as "generated using David A. Wheeler's 'SLOCCount'."
Compared to a PHP framework I created
Total Physical Source Lines of Code (SLOC) = 41,755 Development Effort Estimate, Person-Years (Person-Months) = 10.06 (120.77) (Basic COCOMO model, Person-Months = 2.4 * (KSLOC**1.05)) Schedule Estimate, Years (Months) = 1.29 (15.46) (Basic COCOMO model, Months = 2.5 * (person-months**0.38)) Estimated Average Number of Developers (Effort/Schedule) = 7.81 Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 1,359,520 (average salary = $56,286/year, overhead = 2.40). SLOCCount, Copyright (C) 2001-2004 David A. Wheeler SLOCCount is Open Source Software/Free Software, licensed under the GNU GPL. SLOCCount comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions as specified by the GNU GPL license; see the documentation for details. Please credit this data as "generated using David A. Wheeler's 'SLOCCount'."
I know what my framework does and it doesn't do half what Rails does. One inference is that by COCOMO estimates, which are relatively well thought of, two somewhat similar projects show that Rails appears to defy the statistics. It is important to emphasize that fact: Ruby and Rails do not fit metrics based on LOC and it's somewhat dubious whether the other projects I've measured fit well either.
Does anyone use this tool and can anyone illuminate this interpretation?
> > >>> >>> Stupid title. Compares new lines of code, active developers, and new >>> projects -- Ruby vs. PHP vs. Python vs. Perl: >>> >>> http://ohloh.net/wiki/articles/php_eats_rails >>> >>> Mildly interesting, I guess... >>> >>> RoR's project page: >>> The Ruby on Rails Open Source Project on Open Hub >> >> It's just a title designed to gain attention. When I skimmed the >> article, I saw it contend that there are more PHP programmers and >> more >> PHP code than Ruby programmers and code. Wow..there's some >> groundbreaking research. *back to work* > > From my blog round-up of odd links knocking around yesterday: > > "... this article is getting some digg love right now, thanks to its > contentious title. Unfortunately the stats it quotes are completely > ridiculous. > The main claim is that 5 times more lines of code are being > contributed in open source projects in PHP than in Ruby. The author > misses the point that this might be because it takes 5 times more LOC > to do the same thing in PHP as it does in Ruby. My personal > experience is that the factor is more like 10-15 times more lines > than in Ruby. Ruby style emphasises elegant one-liners. > > What's more "Web 2.0 is being built in PHP" is a moronic statement to > make given that most "Web 2.0" applications are close-sourced and > therefore not included in the stats. Thankfully they gain some sanity > towards the end by pointing out the growth in open source Ruby > projects is much higher than those in PHP project, but they're not > prepared to do the basic maths to realise that in fact, PHP is dying > relative to Ruby." > > VagueWare.com > > Like you said, 'back to work'.
Do the COCOMO statistics seem accurate for your PHP framework? How long was that actually in development?
_Kevin
Nowhere near that long. That's the point. The stats aren't
reflective of reality and the "eats for breakfast" article relies
on stats. The site was under development 1 guy 2.5 years, 10% effort.
<snip>
Do the COCOMO statistics seem accurate for your PHP framework? How long was that actually in development?
_Kevin
>