in reply to Tracking Perl Progress

Who is the beneficiary of the metrics?

Some of your metrics are important from the perspective of a boss or manager. Others are of concern to the coder him/herself. Others could be looked at as a measure of one's contribution to the software community at large. A Larry Wall or Damian Conway or Randal Schwartz might not show up as well on boss-oriented metrics as some rut-oriented geek, but I'm sure glad they're around.

I've known lots of coders who infest a place and crank out lots of "progress" that didn't solve a single worthwhile problem for the organization they worked for. As a company owner, I much prefer the guy who takes long walks on my time, but then comes back in and whammo! makes things a whole lot better with a 30-line script. The way I look at it, if he does that two or three times a month, I'm way ahead of the game.

As you can probably infer, I'm all in favor of #12. A coder who is a whole person is a hell of a lot more valuable in the big picture than by any other measure. :D