Bill the LizardAug 13, 2025
Narrator voice: It was, in fact, 10,000 lines of bug-filled crap.
Show threadEv DelenAug 13, 2025

@lizardbill

I'm reminded of how IBM used to try to quantify coding for the purposes of promotion and bonuses:

It started with KLOC, which incentivized developers to write long, unwieldy code to juice up their LOC count.

So then it became Code Density, which incentivized developers to write a single line of inscrutably dense but functional code.

Finally they just gave up!

Yeah, so line count is not a measure of quality by any means whatsoever!

cc @pluralistic

Show threadWild Eyed Boy From FreecloudAug 13, 2025

@evdelen @lizardbill @pluralistic I'll never forget my 1st experience with KLOCs.

Boss: How many lines of code will this be?
Me: Um, Idunno, 1000.
later...
Boss: How many lines of code have you written?
Me: 250.
Boss: So, you're 1/4 done?
Me: Sure?

While KLOCs are completely useless, like every other software measurement, they had the advantage of being *quick* and relatively painless to produce.

Show threadLog 🪵
@WildEyedBoyFromFreecloud @evdelen @lizardbill @pluralistic
25% done: 500 LoC
50% done: 2000 LoC
75% done: 12000 LoC
100% done: 8000 LoC
125% done: 4000 LoC
150% done: 2000 LoC
200% done: 1 LoC (The OS or a library project implemented this feature.)
Aug 13, 2025 at 2:37pmWeb
Show threadsmolwaffleAug 13, 2025
@log
Every piece of software contains at least one bug.
Every piece of software can be reduced in length by one line.
Therefore, every piece of software can be reduced to one line with a bug in it.
@WildEyedBoyFromFreecloud @evdelen @lizardbill @pluralistic