This cannot be true. He cannot be THAT stupid
For anyone who isn't a programmer, to understand how bad an idea this is, programming isn't like being a writer, it's more like being a writer, an editor, and a test reader. Yes, you can do a bunch of writing in it, but often you're editing instead. You maybe add a dozen new lines, but maybe they replace a hundred lines that were worse. Or maybe you spend DAYS just reading, taking notes, looking for plot holes. Programming is all three, and how much you do of each changes all the time.
Just like making a book, coding projects tend to start out with a lot of writing, then as they mature they shift more to editing and reviewing, as you aren't making new things, but refining and correcting what's already there. Twitter is 16 years old at this point, it's going to involve a LOT of editing and reviewing rather than just writing.
You could easily be one of the most effective Twitter programmers and have your net "lines added" count be NEGATIVE, because you found some inefficient or broken code and rewrote it to be simpler and better.
This has happened to me! Once I had a part time job for a medical company and they wanted me to look into a problem they were having where sometimes they'd lose data. I spent nearly a week reading over their code and doing tests, and finally narrowed it down to one line of code, which needed a one line change.
One week of work. 1 line added. They paid by the hour and were happy to pay me for all that work, because in the long run that probably saved them millions. You really want to judge that as nearly worthless compared to the time I turned in 400 lines in a couple hours to make them a form that would send an email with survey results?
