Re: systems programming versus application programming

From: AndyW (foo__at_bar_no_email.com)
Date: 07/19/04 

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 09:34:49 +1200

On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 22:59:29 +0200, "Ilja Preuß" <it@iljapreuss.de>
wrote:

>Alan Gauld wrote:
>
>> But in practice bug fixing is the principle cause of entropy in
>> software.
>
>That's not my experience - perhaps it might depend on how you do it? Why
>does bug fixing cause entropy in your experience?
>
>Cheers, Ilja
>

Fixing bugs is the art of fixing something that really shouldnt have
been busted in the first place. :)

In basic terms, if you take someone from doing productive work -
creating software that works on a project and put them into a
maintenance mode - fixing bugs, that person is no longer productive.

Eventually as the bug count increases OR more people move from
productively creating new products to non-productively fixing bugs
then the speed at which the software project is moving forwards begins
to decay. At some stage the project will stagnate or die because it is
no longer capable of moving forwards.

Another way of looking at it - time is money. Most projects (unless
funded R&D) have a fixed budget. If you spend money on fixing bugs
that shouldnt really have existed - you have less money to spend on
the actual project. Eventually the budget will dry up or be exceeded
but you wont have achieved your objective.

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