The library was a masterpiece of what if driven development. It was about 50k LoC, and it had 300k LoC of dependencies. It was a nightmare to modify. And no one wanted to take over maintenance so people would submit PRs to the former employee when they did modify it.
I wanted to change something in the library to support a large migration I was in charge of. When I went digging it turned out that we were barely using any of the features in the 2 years since he’d finished it. I replaced the 50k LoC library and 300k LoC of dependencies with 300 lines in less time than it would have taken me to modify the library (a few days).
High-quality code and high-volume code are highly anti-correlated. Incidentally, low-quality code that is excessively long just so happens to be common complaint with AI-generated code.
Perhaps they tackle non-code-editing tasks like architecture, design, mentoring and code review (think staff and principal tasks)
> Every line of code removed is a line that was previously added
Yes. This os not a failure. Code has a surprisingly short half-life.
What would you keep from this?
Because they were added doesn't mean they were needed and even if the same person added and then removed them, it doesn't mean they are digging ditches to fill them.
The idea that "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time" also applies to code, and sometimes later you are blessed with more time than you had when implementing something under deadline pressure.
Huh? If LoC weren't needed then adding them was unnecessary and a waste of time. Someone who is known at an organization for removing unnecessary code screams inefficiency to me. It's paying one person to create a mess then another to clean it up.
My previous reply already addressed this?
I can't help but think you are being purposefully obtuse if you can't acknowledge the concept of developers creating known (and hopefully temporary) technical debt due to various forms of deadline related time pressure or changing requirements.
I'd simplify to "Truly capable engineers are able to achieve more positive outcomes" - half of what makes a capable, dependable engineer is knowing what outcomes are needed and making them happen.
> But there is a correlation between output and LoC.
That is less true today than it ever has been, due to LLMs.
i tend to find that the most productive teams make better decisions and work fewer hours. the quality of decisions is such a huge force multiplier that it renders actual hours worked almost an irrelevant variable.
• sloc = Source Lines of Code
.. so I suppose nloc would mean Net LoC