• foggy@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    Linus from LTT asks Linus if he’d ever heard of software developers being terminated based on how many lines of code they’d written .

    Linus Torvalds responds “Anyone who thinks that’s a valid metric is too stupid to work at a tech company…”

    It’s clear Torvalds doesn’t know who this is about when questioned.

    Linus hints to him it’s about Musk.

    “Apparently I was spot on [about Elon Musk being such and individual who is too stupid to work at a tech company].”

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      12 hours ago

      I’m not even a computer guy, but even I can see how just using the number of lines of code as a metric would be an extremely stupid method for determining effectiveness. Quality should ALWAYS rule over Quantity, but billionaires are obsessively into quantity, to an extremely unhealthy degree (it’s a mental illness, OCD, hoarding, etc.), that’s how they become billionaires.

      • teft@piefed.social
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        12 hours ago

        I’m going to set my terminal width to 1 character. That way my “lines” of code count goes way up.

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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          12 hours ago

          That’s the kind of thinking that a Sociopathic Oligarch could get behind, which is entirely the problem. Gaming and/or hacking the system is preferable to doing things properly. They want to be “disruptive,” even when it’s ill-advised.

          • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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            2 hours ago

            Imagine trying to read that

            Kernel code is very often a series of short words, and very often formatted to take a lot of vertical space (i.e lines of code). It can be hard to read, especially when it’s a short code that corresponds to a longer function or location; but with practice we can cope.

            tho

            See? You’re expecting people to do it already. And kernel code conforms to the grammar a lot more than American 'english.

            • SolSerkonos@piefed.social
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              8 hours ago

              I wasn’t trying to suggest that it would be impossible- it’s obviously not. Just that it would be a difficult adjustment.

      • foggy@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        Here’s a very simple example.

        What’s 3^3?

        Or,

        Well it’s 3x3x3

        Which is 3+3+3, 3 times.

        Which is 3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3, which is 27.

        Which solution do we prefer?

        3^3 = 27?

        Or

        3+3+3

        +3+3+3

        +3+3+3

        =27?

        Which one uses more lines?