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"You could look at literally any objective measure to proxy actual productivity and be better off than this" It's fairly well-established in research (and in p

"You could look at literally any objective measure to proxy actual productivity and be better off than this" It's fairly well-established in research (and in practice) that there is no objective measure of developer productivity. Metrics like lines of code, number of pull requests, velocity points are incredibly poor proxies.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
Alright, I'm willing to consider that their claims are not merely unsupported but impossible to support, but that's not a better look exactly.
zer00eyz 3y ago
>>>> It's fairly well-established in research (and in practice) that there is no objective measure of developer productivity. Oh, there is. Money. How much do you spend on eng to earn a buck (eng value, infrastructure). Impact of your next project on the bottom line. How much can you save by making a change. So many bullshit features from engineers, and product people that have FUCK ALL impact on the bottom line. But hey they made you happy, or looked good on your resume to get you the next job...
marcosdumay 3y ago
Lines of code is a much better proxy than reported productivity. It stops being a good proxy if you use it to reward or punish developers, compare different languages, or different types of software. But if you don't do those, it's quite good. Velocity points is worse, because the current culture implies it will be used to reward or punish developers. But it's probably still better than reported productivity. In fact, reported productivity is probably one of the worst metrics around. People can't even keep track of how long they spend programing, much less of how much they accomplish.
- geekjock 3y ago
  "Lines of code is a much better proxy than reported productivity." Researchers who specialize in this field largely disagree with this. Here's a round-up: https://getdx.com/blog/measuring-developer-activity/ https://getdx.com/blog/measuring-developer-activity/
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    You noticed that those quotes are almost all about metrics for rewarding or punishing developers, right?
    - esafak 3y ago
      The point of collecting data is to act on it.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
        But in this case the individual devs aren't rewarded/punished

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

Alright, I'm willing to consider that their claims are not merely unsupported but impossible to support, but that's not a better look exactly.

zer00eyz 3y ago

>>>> It's fairly well-established in research (and in practice) that there is no objective measure of developer productivity. Oh, there is. Money. How much do you spend on eng to earn a buck (eng value, infrastructure). Impact of your next project on the bottom line. How much can you save by making a change. So many bullshit features from engineers, and product people that have FUCK ALL impact on the bottom line. But hey they made you happy, or looked good on your resume to get you the next job...

marcosdumay 3y ago

Lines of code is a much better proxy than reported productivity. It stops being a good proxy if you use it to reward or punish developers, compare different languages, or different types of software. But if you don't do those, it's quite good. Velocity points is worse, because the current culture implies it will be used to reward or punish developers. But it's probably still better than reported productivity. In fact, reported productivity is probably one of the worst metrics around. People can't even keep track of how long they spend programing, much less of how much they accomplish.

geekjock 3y ago
"Lines of code is a much better proxy than reported productivity." Researchers who specialize in this field largely disagree with this. Here's a round-up: https://getdx.com/blog/measuring-developer-activity/ https://getdx.com/blog/measuring-developer-activity/
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  You noticed that those quotes are almost all about metrics for rewarding or punishing developers, right?
  - esafak 3y ago
    The point of collecting data is to act on it.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
      But in this case the individual devs aren't rewarded/punished