In the absence of independent user feedback, a good way to approximate independent feedback is to write something, not look at it for a while and then try to read/use it. I was reminded of this recently when I tried to use my countloc app to gather some project LOC metrics. I had written this particular version about a year ago and hadn’t used it in a while. After dusting off the mothballs and invoking the help, it took me two attempts to get it to work properly. I was not impressed. I was also worried that the hundred or so other people that downloaded it had a similar experience of finding that it was not as usable as it should be.

I’ve hopefully fixed the usability problems in the latest version – countloc v0.4. I’ve also fixed a few bugs and added in some feature requests that I had received via the RubyForge page.

If you do give this app a twirl please provide feedback via the RubyForge area on any issues encountered.

Note: The app is implemented in Ruby and the download also contains the source code. I would be interested in hearing from any Ruby gurus out there on any suggestions for improving the code. I’ve set up a thread in the forum area for providing feedback.