[DenisM]

Better designs require fewer lines of code [#]. Maybe the person spends more time thinking than writing. Also think about a typical enterprise Java program - writing lots of boilerplate code is bound to create fantastic muscle/syntax memory and no useful skill beyond that.

[#] If this doesn't seem obvious consider the inverse - worse designs will inevitably require more lines of code to get the same result.

[CaptainZapp]

Better designs require fewer lines of code

I think that's extremely dependent on context.

I write mostly SQL and bash and would argue that both languages are not conductive to try to reduce size at the cost of future maintenance.

[z3t4]

There are simply no metric which can automatically measure code/design quality. Here's how I feel about code/design quality: 1) How many files I need to open to understand what the code does (less is better) 2) How many times I have to jump to follow the execution path (less is better) 3) How easy can I remove or rewrite this piece of code