Curious. I teach a second year undergraduate class in Australia, in which I put the whole class onto a single codebase, typically growing it from 1,500 lines at the start to usually around 60,000 lines by the end of term. (Possibly slightly less this term -- I've moved universities from UQ to UNE and it's a smaller class this time around)
I haven't noticed students hitting a wall in that process -- the code isn't always very good (they're students) but the groups generally get there with the code, and struggle instead with large merges, group dynamics, writing tests, etc.
This could be because I've already put the general architecture and build system in place before they start, but I wonder if there might be something else at play too.
(Well, or maybe they are hitting the wall, but as they need to do this to get through the unit, they scrabble frantically over the top of it...)
I believe the article is primarily talking about single programmer codebases, although team codebases come up at the end.
I think everyone would agree that a second year undergraduate (who had not programmed at all before university) is not generally going to be able to write 60,000 lines of code single-handedly. And certainly not in one term.
When comparing experiences, I think it's important to be careful to compare apples to apples.
Sounds like a good way to teach programming :)
I would suggest that it's because you are putting the architecture in place. I work professionally in a code base that is hitting a Norris number and is suffering from little to no architectural direction in the past and some parts are very difficult to work in.
I haven't noticed students hitting a wall in that process -- the code isn't always very good (they're students) but the groups generally get there with the code, and struggle instead with large merges, group dynamics, writing tests, etc.
This could be because I've already put the general architecture and build system in place before they start, but I wonder if there might be something else at play too.
(Well, or maybe they are hitting the wall, but as they need to do this to get through the unit, they scrabble frantically over the top of it...)