I've just committed 3 lines that fix a bad intermittent race condition that took over a month to track down (partially because I can't test it and have to rely on other people who aren't 100% available). Is that unproductive?
On the other end, I'd fully expect someone doing that producing : - 3 lines of fix - A comprehensive documentation of what happened here, how to diagnose it and track it down, and how to avoid it in the future, (ideally if the company supports it with an oral explanation to concerned teammates).
In the end, I'd be very skeptical of one month of work letting 3 LOC as the only tangible output too.
The problem and diagnostic conversations are documented in the JIRA ticket; the solution is documented in another ticket which "fixes" the first one (for abstruse internal reasons); and more commentary is provided in both the comments around my fix and my verbose commit message.
(Also there's a whole bunch of angry Slack ranting about this issue but that probably doesn't count as "documentation".)
I suppose it depends what people mean by LOC. I guess my 3 LOC isn't actually just those 3 LOC. Definitely an interesting thing to think about at least. Ta!