To what extent do you believe this is po

To all 3:

Not a chance. Nevermind that many (most) people lack the aptitude and mindset for programming, but strictly speaking "any human" would include infants (clearly incapable), or mentally and/or physically challenged individuals.

Not to mention comatose or otherwise fatally ill people who would not survive long enough to complete the project.

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Assuming they will be able to do dedicate 40 hours a week to it (ie: they have no other job or responsibilities), I still say "not a chance" to all 3.

Some people simply do not have the mental capability for programming. Not because they're stupid, but because their brain simply does not work that way.

See this article:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/separating-programming-sheep-from-non-programming-goats.html

EDIT: Note I provided the above answer because I wanted to play nice. If I wanted to keep being a wiseass, I could exploit several other holes in your overly simplified question. But I know what you meant so I'll stop now ;P

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htirwin (1208)

It would be a better question to ask if you think that there exists, or could exist, a person who could achieve any of those three tasks. My answer would be no.

In 2007, it was found that a linux distro contained about 283 million lines of code, and would have cost about 8 billion dollars to produce if it were proprietary.

I'm not sure how many lines of code windows 95 is, but say it were 10 million lines, and say you worked on it for 5 years. That would be 2 million lines a year, and almost 6 thousand lines a day.

If you wrote the mentioned linux distro in 10 years, it would require writing about 77,500 lines per day.

Could anyone at all do this? I seriously doubt it. Could any person with an IQ over 70 ... do this? ...

You have to also realize that for every so many lines of code (when writing an operating system), requires many many more lines of reading.

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There's a difference between being able to write n lines of stuff in a given amount of time, and actually having that stuff be functional. 77,500 lines of code in a day is unfeasible. You'd have to have the entire OS written out in your head and just write without thinking. That's gonna lead to bugs. Have you ever debugged something of 283 million lines of code? It won't be easy (or possible) to do in a lifetime by yourself.

Those numbers are horrendously flawed. So many bad assumptions.

283 million lines is not unrealistic. For example, the company I'm interviewing for has a backend system that has over 150 million lines of code. This isn't counting the software that interfaces with it.

EDIT:
As an aside, I'm categorizing this thread as trolling now.

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I love that any time a post of mine exhibits brutal honesty towards a new poster it gets reported.

There are myriad factors that you are not and can't possibly take into account in your arguments. Factors that completely nullify (if they weren't already null) the numbers you're spitting out.

EDIT:
Agree, Resident, smells awfully like troll in here...

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You'll fail for being human. And I'm pretty sure it's you reporting us, since you're the only other one replying to this thread. And now both I and iHutch have been reported.

Come back in 20 years with a functional OS that can serve as a replacement to Windows 7.

closed account (Dy7SLyTq)

well, i woudl because it like you don't see how big an operating system is

S G H (2638)

Wikipedia wrote:
The History of Linux began in 1991[...] [...] It has grown from a small number of C files under a license prohibiting commercial distribution to its state in 2009 of over 370 megabytes of source under the GNU General Public License.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux

1991 to 2009: 18 Years
18 Years -> 370 MB.

1991 to 2013: 22 Years
Linearly:
22 Years -> (370) * (22/18) -> 452MB.

Using non-widechars, that's 452+ Million of Characters.

283 million lines means you have like two letters each new line.

Fake numbers there, unless their source have really grown a lot more in those 4 years.

Please someone also tell me why those posts above from iHutch105 were reported,
Is it because he doesn't believe those numbers?

There you go:

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
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I feel confident. Come back in a year with your progress

Given your logic and the time you've wasted arguing this point you could have contributed about 2400 words of code to your operating system by now...

Can a dedicated, skilled programmer [snip] I am asking if it's theoretically possible

Well that drastically changes the question, now doesn't it?

Your original question was asking if it was true that anyone could do it.
Now you're asking if it's theoretically possible for an experienced programmer to do it.

Of course it's theoretically possible. With enough prior experience, someone could theoretically be fully capable of doing this. However the chances of one person having all that experience is non-existant. Nevermind them also having the desire and drive to finish it, and having the financial and social freedom to dedicate the time to it.

Which is why it hasn't happened.

With those estimates I can potentially compare to Windows 95 in eight years or less, working a six day week at a minimum of 35 hours.

As has been mentioned.... that's assuming you can churn out code as fast as you can type. The hard part of coding is not the typing, it's the planning, the design, the debugging... the time you spend between typing.

What if I proved you all wrong?

LOL.

If you could do this, you'd make a lot of money. Win7 makes millions of dollars. If you can make something comparable, I'm sure you'd be able to rake in at least 7 figures.

So yeah.. go ahead and prove us all wrong.

@EssGeEich,

Those numbers are for the kernel. The kernel does not make up the entire operating system.

We're talking about developing a Windows 7 here. Windows 7 is most definitely more than a kernel

Excellent.

I'm sure Microsoft will sweat it in 2023 when you release an OS comparable to one they released in 2009.

S G H (2638)

@ResidentBiscuit

I was talking about:

iseeplusplus wrote:
In 2007, it was found that a linux distro contained about 283 million lines of code

And by

EssGeEich wrote:
Please someone also tell me why those posts above from iHutch105 were reported, Is it because he doesn't believe those numbers? There you go [...]

I meant the numbers asked from the OP.

~Yes, this means I don't believe anyone on the earth is able to do that.

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