Update: Anyone who understands function-points will realize from my post that I didn't. However, the point I'm making still has validity. You cannot take the same number of function-points and the cost/fp in language A and use them to estimate the total cost when implementing in language B. That's the point I didn't realize I was trying to make.

It would be interesting, however, to see what the average cost/fp is in Perl as opposed to other languages, such as C.

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I don't know of any such project. hv's response to your post may have some useful info.

However, I feel the need to correct a further misconception. The number of function-points will be lower in Perl than in most comparable languages. Let's take C, for example, and use a case that's heavily biased towards Perl - creating a linked list.

• In C, this would require a bunch of maintenance code dealing with pointer arithmetic and calls to malloc(), free(), and code to insert, delete, and a bunch of state information.
• In Perl, you use an array.

The code provides the exact same functionality, but requires as few as 10% of the function-points in Perl as in C.

Let's take another example that's heavily biased to Perl - parsing textfiles. Again, let's compare vs. C.

• In C, you have to open the file, allocate memory, use tok(), strcmp, and a bunch of other crazy stuff. When I used to do this, I had macros calling macros calling macros ... and it was still ugly.
• In Perl, you open the file, use a regex or two, add the values to an array of hashes, and be done with it.

Again, we're talking about 90% fewer function-points in Perl as in C.

You may think I'm picking on C cause it showcases Perl very nicely, but Pascal isn't much better. Java starts to compare well, but still comes up short. Frankly, Perl is simply more expressive than nearly any other language in common use. And, that doesn't even count the code that using CPAN provides.

In other words, I don't think you're going to be able to take function-point counts from another language and have them be useful in estimating time to develop in Perl.

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