Size is the best predictor of code quality
I have two questions for y'all on this.<p>I've heard it said for years that studies show the number of bugs grows roughly linearly with code size and that this holds true across any programming language. (It's repeated, for example, at <a href="http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LinesOfCode" rel="nofollow">http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LinesOfCode</a>) I think I've even seen references to such studies, but I don't remember where. So, HN: what are these studies? Anybody know? (I mean besides the one referenced by the OP on class size. I believe this meme goes further back than that.)<p>My second question is about how to measure code size. PG said a few years ago: why not just count tokens? I've thought about this ever since and I don't see what's wrong with it. Raw character count is obviously a lame metric, and LOC isn't much better. But token count seems like an apples-to-apples comparison that is easy to measure objectively and leaves out noise such as name length and whitespace. So: what's wrong with token count as a measurement of code size?