The software industry: annealing, but wrong (opens in new tab)

In recent months I've heard of several teams with an interesting policy: each pull request should be no more than a few files, and no more than a certain number of lines (say 500). And do just one thing and do it well. And be easy for a human to review. And be fully tested by the test suite. All those are good requirements, right? Surely this is quality software engineering. And often, the results are good. Sure, splitting a single 6000-line feature or fix into twelve 500-line PRs is more wor...