Manager asked me once
"how many lines of code does a good developer write"

:facepalm: i was so shocked i couldnt answer him straight with a good answer. tried telling him that we are not a factory making nails, i dont know. what would you have said to him?

"how long is a rope?"

How many cars does a good mechanic fix? How many patients does a good doctor treat? How many jokes does a good comedian tell?

People who don't get the fine detail of what we do generally need comparisons they can understand. My analogies might be crap, but the other person should start to get the picture? Sometimes worse when that person SHOULD understand the detail!

"how much wood would a woodchuck chuck?"

or 42.

Sometimes less is more. I think it was Mark Twain who apologized to a friend, 'sorry for writing such a long letter, I did not have time to write a shorter one'.

The number of lines needed to get the job done ...

As few as possible...?

"enough" in both sense of the word.

The best developers delete twice as many lines of code as they add, because the best program is the simplest one that still does the same job.

That same manager would then think you're hardly working if you programmed using the functional paradigm.

"the amount of code is irrelevant. What it does and how it does it is the most important thing."

Some classic answers here, but I think I would've answered "as little as possible to match the project requirements", but something tells me he/she might not understand that concept...

I'm guessing the mamager wanted to quantify coding into something easily measured and compared. Without having to go through the trouble of trying to understand the code.

I would've answered: How many times does a sculptor swing his hammer and chisel?

@ZaLiTHkA you mean the concept of "project requirements"? 😁

@kanduvisla, lol.. That's definitely one possibility.