Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes

Aka: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. (Goodhart's Law)

Side note: Goodhart is still alive (as of this writing). He was born 23 October 1936 in Oxford, England. He commented that "it does feel slightly odd to have one's public reputation largely based on a minor footnote". See The Rarity of Genius.

But also, some metrics are bad from the get-go:

• LOC is really easy to game

• Often refactoring to make things faster or cleaner (both really good things) will remove lines of code. Bill Atkinson removed 2000 lines of code from Apple Lisa. https://www.folklore.org/Negative_2000_Lines_Of_Code.html "I'm not sure how the managers reacted to that, but I do know that after a couple more weeks, they stopped asking Bill to fill out the form, and he gladly complied"

last updated: June 26, 2025