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This is definitely true. I joined a team where the manager used to measure LOC per week and chastise “low performers” in public. (Early 90s for context.) Now t

This is definitely true. I joined a team where the manager used to measure LOC per week and chastise “low performers” in public. (Early 90s for context.) Now this was a telecom MMI product with lots of what we now call CRUD operations, bracketed with range checks. Instead of making a library, this team would copy/paste code and customise each MMI command, and naturally they had copy/pasted defects galore across the system. I came from a firmware background (16kbytes of 8 bit micro assembly) and this enormous waste of resources was astounding to me. When I called it out in public in the weekly review meeting, well, let’s just say it was not a pleasant experience.

mewpmewp2 2y ago
Just build a script to generate this boilerplate code, and run it 15 minutes a day and work on side projects the other time I guess.
- SanjayMehta 2y ago
  I wanted to build a DSL, was exiled to the RTOS team for suggesting this. Worked out well in the long run for me.
devsda 2y ago
> measure LOC per week and chastise I don't know if this is a recent thing. > Instead of making a library, this team would copy/paste code and customise each MMI command If it has been for a while, then a library call is few lines vs copying that meets the arbitrary metric of higher LOC. At the end of the day, it's down to the incentives
- SanjayMehta 2y ago
  This was in the early 90s.
OnionBlender 2y ago
I had a director that was obsessed with github enterprise stats. He forbid people from squashing commits and told people to commit every day, even if you're in the middle of something. One of our interns was close to the end of his term and this director wanted to hire him. He thought he was amazing based on all the code he wrote. The problem was that this intern was bad, so we had him write unit tests. But he was bad at that too so he had to make a lot of revisions based on feedback. Thankfully we didn't hire him after myself and others explained why the intern had so many commits and LOC.

mewpmewp2 2y ago

Just build a script to generate this boilerplate code, and run it 15 minutes a day and work on side projects the other time I guess.

SanjayMehta 2y ago
I wanted to build a DSL, was exiled to the RTOS team for suggesting this. Worked out well in the long run for me.

devsda 2y ago

> measure LOC per week and chastise I don't know if this is a recent thing. > Instead of making a library, this team would copy/paste code and customise each MMI command If it has been for a while, then a library call is few lines vs copying that meets the arbitrary metric of higher LOC. At the end of the day, it's down to the incentives

SanjayMehta 2y ago
This was in the early 90s.

OnionBlender 2y ago

I had a director that was obsessed with github enterprise stats. He forbid people from squashing commits and told people to commit every day, even if you're in the middle of something. One of our interns was close to the end of his term and this director wanted to hire him. He thought he was amazing based on all the code he wrote. The problem was that this intern was bad, so we had him write unit tests. But he was bad at that too so he had to make a lot of revisions based on feedback. Thankfully we didn't hire him after myself and others explained why the intern had so many commits and LOC.