I think this article and its "research" is not healthy. Anecdotally, I've spent many hours debugging issues with code, where the fix was 1-2 lines of code. Or what if I am an engineer that "--amends" my every commit? What if I pair program? If a "researcher" looked at my productivity for that particular timeline and determined I was a "ghost" engineer, what would happen? Would the research be truthful?

There are lazy developers out there, but we know who they are. Most managers do, too.

The article, does make the caveat at the end, but I think the damage is done:

>> Before you start side-eyeing your coworkers, it’s worth noting that measuring productivity in software engineering is notoriously tricky. Commit counts or hours logged are often poor indicators of true impact. Some high-performing engineers—the mythical “10x engineers”—produce significant results with fewer, well-thought-out contributions.

Soon CTOs will be making performance judgements based solely on commits! Forcing. Developers. To. Commit. Every. Single. Little. Change.