Actually, I think that unlike "total LoC in project" "LoC in function" might be a useful measure, since this it frequently measured against "How many LoC can I

Actually, I think that unlike "total LoC in project" "LoC in function" might be a useful measure, since this it frequently measured against "How many LoC can I fit on my screen?" Also, this method isn't using absolute LoC as a measure of anything, and isn't trying to measure the amount of work being done. It's looking at how often the LoC in a function increases and decreases in order to identify a specific feature that might be indicative of problematic code bases: functions that grow monotonically over time. I think it's a good assumption that, for a given function function, change in LoC is positively correlated with change in complexity.