People are using « tokens used » as productivity metric ?!

[romeu@mastodon.social]

People are using « tokens used » as productivity metric ?! « Tokens used »?!?!? That’s like, the first time « lines of code created » gets beaten for the « worst metric of software engineering » 🫠

[itnomad@ruhr.social]

@romeu It's just the new "1st post!" from Slashdot back in the good old days

[rosactrl@social.vivaldi.net]

@romeu I thought it was more like Vim golf 🧐

[mavnn@bonfire.mavnn.eu]

@natpryce@mastodon.social @romeu@mastodon.social "I spent more money, give me a raise!"

[garoof@social.vivaldi.net]

@romeu that's one way to double down on "so foolish as to book that count on the wrong side of the ledger"

[romeu@mastodon.social]

@RosaCtrl in vim golf the goal is to use the least

[rosactrl@social.vivaldi.net]

@romeu yeah, exactly. I thought it… Wow

[mr_e@infosec.exchange]

@romeu
I once had to explain to HR that a code check in was not a valid metric for a write up of a senior developer. They were angry he wasn't doing as many check ins as the junior developers. I walked them through that he was a code reviewer and that he had more impactful check ins, but they were not convinced.

I then pulled up one of their power points and showed them the version history. I hypothetically asked them why they were not more consistently productive and some days didn't have any updates.

It helped a lot.

I still feel crazy thinking about it.

[jkb@gotosocial.jkbockstael.be]

@romeu I burned a lot of fuel, therefore I am very efficient.

[einarwh@mastodon.social]

@romeu Checkmates Goodhart's law by being a terrible metric even when not measured.

[einarwh@mastodon.social]

@romeu It's probably the best possible metric for how hard you're cargo culting though, so it depends on your aims.

[jadam_fr@hachyderm.io]

@romeu
I read a story somewhere of a developer setting up a token burning script that builds badly designed cities in Sim City...

[dupdob@piaille.fr]

@jadam_fr @romeu
Hence, we need to be specific: token used to generate code is a BS metric, where BS stands for beyond satanic.

[sanityinc@hachyderm.io]

@jkb @romeu "statements dreamed up by the utterly deranged"

[markus@mast.uxp.de]

@romeu number of left clicks

[musevg@23.social]

@romeu
It's like Dotcom eras "Cash burn rate", but this time it's AI data centers burning the planet.

[jeantranscene@mastodon.social]

@romeu Someome came to me the other day asking why my token count was so low. I didn't realize that was a productivity metric. WTF.

[sebastiansolidwork@mastodon.social]

@romeu Could be "air breathed".
Code lines are least an outcome, but tokens are a resource you spent to create outcome.
Like breathing, typing, Watts used by your computer, etc.

[lenotaire@mastodon.social]

@romeu I do remember when at work they were using the "committed lines of code" metric. One week I managed to do a SINGLE line change. Fixing a bug which haunted us for months. As they finally acknowledged, the main issue was not the change but knowing exactly where it was needed. The metric had been since buried

[rubdos@mastodon.social]

@romeu Hmm. What about kLOC/token?