Re: Lines of code per day?

On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 10:36 AM David Gibbs via MIDRANGE-L
<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I've worked on a problem for days, changed one line of code, and
solved a problem that was causing massive disruption.

On the other hand, I've created hundreds of lines of code in a single
day ... that ended up being dumped in the trash the very next day.

I like these examples because they get at the fundamental problem of
even thinking about LOC. It's not so much that rewarding LOC
encourages people to write bloated programs. I mean, it does do that,
and that is bad, but that is not the worst of it.

The *fundamental* problem with thinking about LOC is that it is based
on the premise that the job of a programmer is to write code.

It's a *part* of our job, but it's far from the only part, and in many
cases it isn't even the most valuable or important part. Time spent on
coming up with a better design, or on debugging, or on testing, or on
documentation... these things don't add LOC but they add tremendous
value. Or how about the time spent on better communication with the
customers/users, so that you better understand their needs, including
possibly ones they can't articulate or maybe don't even realize they
have?

John Y.