The Resurgence of Lines of Code as a Productivity Metric in the AI Era
By
birdculture
Master baker tier. Every paragraph earns its place on the tray.
Summary
The article discusses the resurgence of lines of code (LOC) as a productivity metric in software development, despite decades of consensus that it's a terrible measure. It explores how AI-generated code has made this metric even more problematic, as AI can produce verbose, inefficient code that inflates line counts while potentially reducing quality. The piece examines historical criticism from programming luminaries like Dijkstra, Gates, and Thompson, and analyzes how modern development practices and AI tools have brought back this flawed metric in new, more dangerous forms.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledDijkstra called it 'a very costly measuring unit because it encourages the writing of insipid code.'
Bill Gates compared measuring programming progress by lines of code to measuring aircraft building progress by weight.
Ken Thompson said one of his most productive days was deleting code.
Lines are spent, not produced.
The metric we killed is back, and AI made it worse
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