Right, and that's why I said at the end of my post, it may just be that length is a bad metric in both cases.
However, I'd posit that if you went into a forum of professional writers and asked how they felt about word count measurements, they'd be a lot more divided than we are regarding lines of code. Or, to pick another example, NaNoWriMo seems to be pretty popular among aspiring authors, and that's all about the wordcount. Maybe it shouldn't be—or maybe there's something we're missing.
For example: it may be the case that lines of code is a useful goal during certain phases of a project—maybe while prototyping, for example. Just like how a target word count is useful when writing a rough draft, but obviously stupid while revising a draft.
Although, an author might set a goal to get below a certain word count during the revision phase—and that again might be a useful target for programmers refactoring code.
However, I'd posit that if you went into a forum of professional writers and asked how they felt about word count measurements, they'd be a lot more divided than we are regarding lines of code. Or, to pick another example, NaNoWriMo seems to be pretty popular among aspiring authors, and that's all about the wordcount. Maybe it shouldn't be—or maybe there's something we're missing.
For example: it may be the case that lines of code is a useful goal during certain phases of a project—maybe while prototyping, for example. Just like how a target word count is useful when writing a rough draft, but obviously stupid while revising a draft.
Although, an author might set a goal to get below a certain word count during the revision phase—and that again might be a useful target for programmers refactoring code.