At Xobni I singlehandedly wrote 30,000 lines in three months.
That fucking hurt.
But that sunk cost was my #1 motivator during the first year. I remember telling myself that I had to make this work, because if I didn't then I'd have to start all over again.
There was a point a long time ago where Xobni was very close to dying. PG said to me "Well if xyz happens then Xobni will be dead."
I was hesitant to argue against PG in those days, but I remember saying without hesitation "No, if xyz happens then I'm moving to Texas to live with my parents and eat Ramen noodles for as long as it takes to come back. I will not let this thing die." I couldn't bear the thought of starting over.
Come to think of it, I believe the guys who wrote the most code this past summer were the Anywhere.FMs, who also got bought in the first 6 months. So while I would not want to encourage people to equate LOC with quality, it does seem to be a good sign when founders write a lot of code.
It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. -- Mark Twain
Writing, when done well, takes time. Some journalists write to a certain length and then shorten to improve quality. A similar process occurs when programming. A scaffolding is required and the final program is smaller. Unfortunately, this process of honing is greatly undervalued and often skipped. It takes significant time and creates less impressive statistics when you've finished. Regardless, the reduced volume of code will be create a long-term saving.
You can also exclude certain file patterns by throwing in a grep -v or two, eg. my command for counting JavaScript lines and excluding 3rd-party libraries is:
55,000 lines of code in the Rock Solid Arcade games so far (4 games, including one bigger unreleased in development). Started work around 3 1/2 months ago. I'd have written them in fewer lines, but I didn't have the time.
That fucking hurt.
But that sunk cost was my #1 motivator during the first year. I remember telling myself that I had to make this work, because if I didn't then I'd have to start all over again.
There was a point a long time ago where Xobni was very close to dying. PG said to me "Well if xyz happens then Xobni will be dead."
I was hesitant to argue against PG in those days, but I remember saying without hesitation "No, if xyz happens then I'm moving to Texas to live with my parents and eat Ramen noodles for as long as it takes to come back. I will not let this thing die." I couldn't bear the thought of starting over.