From a pure accounting perspective, yes, but the whole "code is a liability, not an asset" crowd aren't using the strict definition of it by any means.

Its more just a mental footnote that the contract with the customer is what is valuable, and the code is either supporting that value or destroying it. So if you can have the same contract with the customer for less code that's the outcome to strive for.

I think this perspective comes from the opinion of folks that generally want to cut costs, not leverage their assets to their fullest. If your means of production is an asset that you understand how to leverage over your competitors your mindset won’t be “we really need to minimize this codebase”

I think the saying is drawing on the same idea as Bill Gates' opinion that measuring progress on software by lines of code written is like measuring progress on an airplane by weight.

Airplanes have many functional parts and many not-so-functional parts. There are parts of the airplane that will, if removed, prevent it from working in various critical ways.

But from another perspective, all of those parts, decorative, functional, or essential, are liabilities, dragging your airplane back toward the ground when you want it to stay up in the air. The fact that a particular piece is important doesn't mean it's less of a problem having it; it means you have to suck it up and work around the problem.

Source code is like this. The mere fact of its existence causes problems. Some of it you can't do without. But it's causing problems anyway, and if you can do without it, you want to.

> Source code is like this. The mere fact of its existence causes problems.

So you delete your source code after you ship an app? That doesn't make sense. The source code is one of every software company's greatest assets which is why we have created so many tools to keep track of it like version control, automated testing etc. Otherwise there would be no point in clean code, code documentation etc, just write something that solves the problem and done! No need to even check in the code, just build a binary locally and ship!

I understand the point, but saying that code is a liability and not an asset is false no matter how you look at it. Source code solves a lot of problems you can't solve with binaries, it lets you adapt to change much better. So instead of saying that code is a liability, use the business saying "Focus on your core business", meaning don't write code for things that isn't your core business.

> I understand the point, but saying that code is a liability and not an asset is false no matter how you look at it.

I didn't say that. I said it was a liability. "Don't write code for things that aren't your core business" doesn't tell you that you should try to minimize the amount of code that addresses your core business. But you should.

You misunderstand the analogy. An airplane could be very heavy because it is a very large aircraft with a lot of payload capacity - that would be good. An aircraft could also be very heavy because it is inefficiently built and thus have very little payload capacity. Similarly an aircraft could be light because it is small, but still be inefficiently built, or the reverse. Bill Gates is complaining about evaluating an aircraft by its weight because its weight doesn't on its own tell you about any of the stuff you really care about with an airplane.

Likewise, code could be many lines because it is well formatted and robust. Alternatively it could be long because there's a lot of repetition and bloat. It could be short because it is very targeted to what it needs to be, or it could be very short because the developer used a lot of unreadable code-golf tricks.

In any complex system, you have optimization problems. Very rarely is the answer to an optimization problem simply to minimize an isolated variable. You can not say a lighter airplane is better than a heavier one without asking why it's lighter; likewise a smaller codebase with fewer lines can not be called better unless you know why it is smaller.

Just because a plane could get off the ground without something does not mean that cutting that thing to save weight will move the plane closer to its optimal design. Likewise just because the code base could be reduced does not mean that actually makes it more maintainable and better performing.

It comes from the fact that code depreciates like a car. Yes it does make you a profit (gets you to work) but after 20 years nobody wants your code (car) unless you have done rigorous maintenance. Having the biggest codebase(car) is not a benefit. It's kinda like measuring your software product by how many cups of coffee your developers have drunk.

> It comes from the fact that code depreciates like a car.

If a business owns a car that they use to make a profit, guess where the car is in the balance sheet?

> Having the biggest codebase(car) is not a benefit.

Sure, lines of code is not how you measure the value of code as an asset, just like tons of gross weight isn't how you measure the value of vehicles as an asset.

That doesn't mean code, and vehicles, aren't assets.

“Lines of code are a measure associated with maintenance cost, not asset value” is a reasonable statement. “Code is a liability, not an assset” is not.

One needs to keep in mind though, that minimizing a code base can have significant cost as well. (1) the cost of doing the minimization itself (2) the cost of runtime or compile time differences if any. Also one needs to keep in mind, that less code does not mean easier to maintain either.

Perhaps the amount of code is the wrong metric to optimize. Perhaps it is readability, simplicity, maintainability that we really want and those are harder to put into numbers than LOC.

> Its an asset. Like many (virtually all, other than pure financial) assets, it has associated expenses; maintenance, depreciation, and similar expenses are the norm for non-financial assets.

To get technical about it, code whose discounted future maintenance costs exceed the discounted revenue it is expected to bring in or helps to bring in is a liability. Some maintenance costs are invisible, such as having team members leave; leading to recruiting expenses to seek a replacement and the associated ramp time when they're hired. Companies are often not equipped to assess the cost side in any way that approaches reality and just stick the cost of the "code" on the balance sheet as capex. Having an asset on the balance sheet after doing this doesn't mean you have an asset in reality.

> The whole "code is a liability, not an asset" line is something from people who might understand code, but definitely don't understand assets and liabilities.

Code can be a net liability. Unless you are looking purely at the asset side of the balance sheet and ignoring liabilities, which tends not to be very useful.

I think many folks forget that nobody wants to use your software. They want something that maybe your software can help them get maybe. But if the problem could be solved without your software, they'd try to remove your software ten times or more if they could.