[vpfaulkner]

I like the analogy that code is like weight to an airplane (“Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight” - Bill Gates). You want enough code to achieve your business objectives but no more since code carries a maintenance cost.

I suppose you could say the net value of some code = contribution to business objective - maintenance cost.

This also implies that code could have a negative value depending on its business value and maintenance cost