The mistake is in trying to quantify a qualitative issue. Trying to reduce progress building a program to the number of lines and such. It inherently doesn't make any sense and it's not possible to accurately represent such things as a number or collection of numbers without losing all the detail (and thus, being wrong).
The idea that only truths expressable in abstract equations are objective and thus true is exactly the kind of false belief that gets us in trouble.
> Right now our metric is basically - talk to the developer and try and see if he's BSing you and goofing off, that's super subjective and very vulnerable to personal biases, but, it is a metric - it's just not an objective metric.
That isn't a metric. Metric, having the same root as metre, is about measuring. What you're talking about there is a heuristic, and they're much more effective for tracking qualitative issues.
The idea that only truths expressable in abstract equations are objective and thus true is exactly the kind of false belief that gets us in trouble.
> Right now our metric is basically - talk to the developer and try and see if he's BSing you and goofing off, that's super subjective and very vulnerable to personal biases, but, it is a metric - it's just not an objective metric.
That isn't a metric. Metric, having the same root as metre, is about measuring. What you're talking about there is a heuristic, and they're much more effective for tracking qualitative issues.