Probably the most common metrics that the software industry has attempted to develop have been centered around how many lines of code (abbreviated LoC) a developer writes. I understand why people have tried to do this – it seems to be something that you can measure, so why not keep track of it? A coder who writes more code is more productive, right? Well, no. Part of the trick here is:
"Computer programmer" is not actually a job.
Wait, what? But I see ads all over the place for "programmer" as a job! Well, yes, but you also see ads for "carpenter" all over the place. But what does "a carpenter" produce? Unless you get more specific, it's hard to say. You might say that a carpenter makes "cut pieces of wood," but that's not a product – nobody's going to hire you to pointlessly cut or shape pieces of wood.
So what would be a job that "a carpenter" could do? Well, the job might be furniture repair, or building houses, or making tables. In each case, the carpenter's product...