Software

How Many Lines of Code Are in Your Favorite Software? [#Infographic]

This is why we need more engineers.

Jimmy Daly

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Jimmy is a writer and editor who publishes a weekly newsletter. You can find him on Twitter.

Applications and operating systems require hundreds of thousands if not millions of lines of code. It’s no surprise that the engineers behind these creations are brilliant. Despite that, every piece of software has bugs and requires near-constant attention in order to work across browsers, devices and connections.

This infographic puts HealthCare.gov’s recent struggles in perspective. Photoshop’s CS 6 software contains more than 4.5 million lines of code, while HealthCare.gov contains more than 500 million. According to the New York Times, “One specialist said that as many as five million lines of software code may need to be rewritten before the Web site runs properly.”

Developers have their work cut out for them. Check out the infographic below, and take a look at the data behind it here.

Lines of Code in Apps