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Problem is that all status symbols in the programming world are meaningless, so in the absence of any useful metrics, we latch onto useless ones.

Tests/LOC at least measures something, even if it is imperfect. It's probably better than measuring LOC themselves, which are often a long term cost for the company, not a benefit.

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but, Tests/LLOC seems to state even less than LLOC. LLOC gives an indication of the complexity of the application (or a component).

All Tests/LLOC seems to state is that some lines of code exist and potentially, some test cases are testing them.

It's also a measure of test granularity, i.e. for a module of given complexity, how many test cases cover it?

We can see what it measures. I'm just saying that it's a pretty nebulous metric when used out of context. Taking 2 numbers and condensing them into 1 (à la Megapixels) is an exercise in marketing.

This is why code coverage numbers are a much better metric.

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