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Subject:RE: paying by the word From:"Patterson, Jan" <Jan -dot- Patterson -at- esph -dot- com> To:"Ned Bedinger" <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 18 Oct 2006 15:44:22 -0400
Ned asks "What's a function point?"
Quoted from Wikipedia: "Function points are an ISO recognized software
metric to size an information system based on the functionality that is
perceived by the user of the information system, independent of the
technology used to implement the information system."
Function points are something that can be considered when estimating the
size of a software development project in order to estimate number of
hours/resources. There's more info in Wikipedia if you want to check it
out.
jan.
jan e patterson
sr technical writer - environmental systems products - tucson, az
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+jan -dot- patterson=esph -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+jan -dot- patterson=esph -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Ned Bedinger
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 12:38 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: paying by the word
Jessica Weissman wrote:
> Pay by the word may not be used so much these days, but at one time
> some US government agencies measured tech writer productivity by word
count.
> My uncle, who was a project manager for Defense Department development
> projects, tells stories of editing writing for clarity only to have
> the writer object because the word count was being lowered too much.
>
> Unfortunately my uncle could not change the productivity measure in
use.
>
> Too bad there isn't something analogous to function points for
> measuring tech writer productivity.
>
What's a function point?
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