--- title: Your code is worthless | daily.dev description: Using lines of code (LOC) as a productivity metric is a dangerous vanity metric, especially in the age of AI-generated code. Drawing on Bill Atkinson's famous... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/your-code-is-worthless-pxaqncbmy twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Your code is worthless | daily.dev og:description: Using lines of code (LOC) as a productivity metric is a dangerous vanity metric, especially in the age of AI-generated code. Drawing on Bill Atkinson's famous... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/your-code-is-worthless-pxaqncbmy og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/pxaQNCBmY.png og:image:alt: Your code is worthless og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Your code is worthless **[Lobsters](https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters)** · 7 min read · 2 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Using lines of code (LOC) as a productivity metric is a dangerous vanity metric, especially in the age of AI-generated code. Drawing on Bill Atkinson's famous -2,000 LOC entry and critiquing Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's celebration of 37,000 AI-generated lines per day, the argument is made that code volume is not value. Three alternative metrics are proposed: User Outcomes (does the user's life improve?), Time-to-Value and feedback loop speed (more code slows CI/CD and breaks developer flow), and Utility-to-Maintenance ratio (unused AI-generated features are technical debt weeds). AI coding tools are not condemned outright, but the incentive structures that reward token burn over thoughtful engineering are criticized sharply. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Lines of Code Are Back \(And It's Worse Than Before\)](https://daily.dev/posts/lines-of-code-are-back-and-it-s-worse-than-before--vz8rhgd2f) · Hacker News · 7 upvotes · 3 comments - [Lines of code are useful](https://daily.dev/posts/lines-of-code-are-useful-nmiqpfz9n) · Lobsters · 3 upvotes · 1 comments --- Tags: [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity), [#technical-debt](https://daily.dev/tags/technical-debt), [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding), [#vibe-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/vibe-coding) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/your-code-is-worthless-pxaqncbmy) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Your code is worthless","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/your-code-is-worthless-pxaqncbmy","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/your-code-is-worthless-pxaqncbmy"},"datePublished":"2026-04-04T14:48:00.810Z","dateModified":"2026-04-04T14:48:26.233Z","description":"Using lines of code (LOC) as a productivity metric is a dangerous vanity metric, especially in the age of AI-generated code. 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