This column is the seventh in a series about estimating. The first was in the July 1996 issue. There are, however, several types of source code as well as many other important product types.
Examples are new, modified, and reused code, as well as documentation, screens, reports, and files.
The prior columns in this series gave an overview of estimating and defined some of the steps in making size and resource estimates. If you have not read these earlier columns, you should look at them first to understand the context for this discussion and to see how these various estimating topics relate. This column continues the discussion of how to make software estimates. To make a project plan, you need a resource estimate and, to estimate resources, you need to estimate the size of the product you plan to build. Also, to make a good size estimate, you need historical data on the sizes of the programs you have previously written.