[EGreg]

I do not think a product with zero lines of code is always better than a product with 10,000. So there is obviously some metric that goes up with lines of code but goes down with bugs and technical debt.

Sometimes the downswing from a single line is so dramatic, that such maxims are expressed... but don't take them too literally. Let's be real here.

[masklinn]

Which is why Dijkstra's take on it is excellent: the LOCs you write are a liability. Incurring liabilities is normal, but your goal isn't to maximise liabilities.

[cableshaft]

That might be a good way for engineers to think of it, but you don't really want managers to see programming as a liability, because then they start thinking in terms of eliminating liability for business productivity (i.e. killing your job, not investing money to let you do your job effectively, etc).

There's already enough problems with companies considering their tech departments to be "cost centers" that don't result in direct revenue generation, therefore they don't respect the department enough, we don't need them thinking we're completely undesirable.

[theseatoms]

But it is a liability. If your business could generate the same revenue while spending less resources maintaining internal technology, you'd do it in a heartbeat.

[dTal]

I don't really get what this "cost center" thing gets you at all. Suppose you make televisions. R&D is a "cost center". Whoever's in charge of sourcing components is a "cost center". Hell, making the damn TVs is a "cost center". In fact, the only thing I can think of that isn't a "cost center" is sales. But without everything else, sales would have nothing to sell.

So what the heck is the point of labelling things "cost centers"?

[paulddraper]

No, tons of stuff are liabilities that they don't remove. Rent, salaries, etc.

[wlesieutre]

In the same way, spending $0 is not always a better choice than spending $10,000. You're spending the lines of code with the hope that your return on investment makes the liability worth it.

[marcosdumay]

Oh, came on. Of course you sometimes want code.

You spend lines of code, to get functionality. Keep your expenses down, but nobody is saying they must be zero.

[the_af]

Think of lines of code as surgery to excise a tumor.

Of course you want to remove the tumor. Curing cancer is the goal. But each surgery is a liability; each scalpel cut you make may bring potentially fatal complications, so you strive to perform as few surgeries as possible while still saving the patient.

Rewarding LOCs is like rewarding the high number of surgeries a doctor had to perform on a patient in order to save him/her. It's backwards!