A novel system and method provides a concrete relative measure for evaluating coding quality. The novel system and method do not rely on bug counting. Instead, the number of defective lines of code is compared to a total number of opportunities to create such defects. A defective line is a line that is deleted, added or changed subsequent to drafting of the prior version of the code. In an embodiment, a deletion and an addition are each treated as single defects, while modification of a line of code is treated as two defects. In this way, regardless of whether modification is viewed as deletion followed by addition, or rather simply a single step of modification, the number of defects in either case is the same.