I appreciate the feedback. That's a very interesting article. However, it does seem suffer from the same issues Joel outlined, namely, the measure of attribute

I appreciate the feedback. That's a very interesting article. However, it does seem suffer from the same issues Joel outlined, namely, the measure of attributes of a commit can be gamed and worked towards to achieve a "prolific" or "senior" status. What the article you linked does reinforce is the value of iterative development. As opposed to doing large infrequent commits, doing small bits of work more frequently causes a success higher or "impact". I would say that the article provides a data driven approach to justifying the effectiveness of good iterative planning. However, it doesn't address whether the commits of the "senior" engineer or the "prolific" engineer are of high quality.