I'm not sure I follow. So you failed to measure software productivity in lines of code, therefore it follows that "There's No Such Thing as Software Productivity"? Don't you think that giving up after n=1 attempts at measuring software productivity might be a
tad too fast to draw a generalized claim of impossibility? I might argue the real lesson learned is "Lines of Code are Not a Measure of Productivity in an Isolated, Toy Example".
I suspect this sort of thing gets promulgated because it kind of massages our ego, like yes, they can measure other sorts of productivity, but not ours, oh no, we're too complex and intelligent, there's no way to measure the deep sorts of work that we do! Which, yes, OK, we're not exactly bricklayers, but surely, if you had to, you could do better.
I suspect this sort of thing gets promulgated because it kind of massages our ego, like yes, they can measure other sorts of productivity, but not ours, oh no, we're too complex and intelligent, there's no way to measure the deep sorts of work that we do! Which, yes, OK, we're not exactly bricklayers, but surely, if you had to, you could do better.