It might be for aircraft construction but not aircraft design. Since programmers aren't typists entering already-complete programs, programming is more asking to the latter, not the former. You want aircraft to be lighter and programs to be shorter, and measuring progress by movement in the opposite direction is foolish.

But weight relative to a final value is not a reasonable metric for completeness. It's discontinuous with irregular, changes, so it has no utility in predicting how long until completion, for instance.

Sometimes, it's enough to know that the project is progressing.