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Hit 500 lines of code on my first real project and it felt weirdly small
Spent two weeks building a simple to-do app and when I checked the final line count I was expecting way more for something that actually works, has anyone else been surprised by how little code it takes to make something functional?
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harper_gibson21mo ago
Actually, 500 lines for a working to-do app sounds about right if you're writing clean code without a ton of framework overhead. I remember my first project (a little budgeting tracker) was around 400 lines and it did everything it needed to do, including saving data to a file. The thing people don't realize is that a lot of "functionality" comes from built-in libraries or the language itself, not from lines you write personally. It's kind of a good sign honestly, means you're not writing bloat or repeating yourself all over the place.
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ruby_lane1mo ago
Hold on though, I gotta gently push back on that "saving data to a file" part... 400 lines for a budgeting tracker that saves to a file is actually pretty impressive for a first project. Most people's first file-saving attempts end up with a bunch of extra lines just for error handling and making sure the file doesn't get corrupted. Your to-do app probably feels small because you're not writing all the boilerplate that handles loading and saving, which can easily add another 100 lines on its own if you do it right.
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