When, if ever, is “number of lines of code” a useful metric?

Question

Some people claim that code\'s worst enemy is its size, and I tend to agree. Yet every day you keep hearing things like

• I write blah lines of code in a day.

Answer 1

Answer: when you can talk about negative lines of code. As in: "I removed 40 extraneous lines of code today, and the program is still functioning as well as before."