KLOC

K (thousand) + LOC (lines of code)

KLOC (plural KLOCs)

1. (computing, programming) thousand lines of code

   In IBM there's a religion in software that says you have to count KLOCs, and a KLOC is a thousand line of code. – Steve Ballmer in Triumph of the Nerds II: Riding the Bear (Robert X. Cringely, Paul Sen, 1996), about 38 minutes in, relating events around 1989.

   It concludes that defects are found 2 to 4 times faster with inspection than with testing, that defects are typically found at the rate of one defect per man hour invested in inspection, and that inspection finds about 37 defects per kloc if it is done properly. – Terry Shepard in Proceedings of the National Workshop on Software Engineering Education (IBM Canada, 1993)

   The formula is based on thousands of lines of source code (kLOC) and incorporates Fagan's recommendations for inspection pace, meeting duration, and frequency:

   elapsed time (in days) = 3 × n kLOC

   Here n is an estimate of how many thousands of lines of code will be inspected. – Glen W. Russell, Experience with Inspection in Ultralarge-Scale Developments (Bell-Northern Research, 1991)

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