Is there a "Large Scale Python Software Design" ?

[Alan Gauld]

On 22 Oct 2004 19:03:02 -0400, aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) wrote:
> >solves all my problem" people I have seen haven't worked on anything
> >"large" -- and my definition of large agrees with Alex's; over 100
> >kloc, more than a handful of developers.
> 
> So you're saying that both attributes are necessary?  

I think they are because both people and code issues arise on
'large' projects (see the Mythoinal Man Month for examples
of each type), although all things are relative. Our local
definition of project size is:

< 100Kloc  = small
100K-1Mloc = Medium
> 1Mloc = large

We try to keep the large projects to less than 10 at any one
time...

Staffing sizes are 1-6 on small projects
4-30 on medium and typically 30-500 on large ones
(I'd guess most large projects are actually around 2-3 MLoc 
and have about 60-100 developers (inc dedicated testers).

Our most common project size is 200-300K with about 10-20
developers. (and the preferred methodology is DSDM) We probably
have about 30-50 such projects running at any one time.

On that scale I use Python for prototyping "components" on 
the medium-large stuff but it all gets built in C++ or Java.
The small projects could be in Perl, VB/ASP, PL/SQL or Java.
(Sadly Python is not an approved language for production -
yet...I'm working on it :-)

Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program website
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld/tutor2