Search System Administrators: Read This
November 9, 2008
A happy quack to the reader who sent me the link to this free IEEE article “Frequently Forgotten Fundamental Facts about Software Engineering.” You can find the article here. After listening to consultants at a conference opine about search and findability, I had fallen into deep despair about enterprise search. I heard customers explain the cartwheels they had to turn to get content management systems to work. I heard vendors–one of which is the object of a police investigation–talk nonsense. When I read the Forgotten Facts, I realized that there were people who were trying to explain the challenges of software in today’s hurry-up, I-know-it-all world. Let me highlight three items from this well written IEEE article:
- “Most software tool and technique improvements account for about a 5- to 30-percent increase in productivity and quality. But at one time or another, most of these improvements have been claimed by someone to have “order of magnitude” (factor of 10) benefits. Hype is the plague on the house of software.”
- “Maintenance typically consumes about 40 to 80 percent (60 percent average) of software costs.”
- “One of the two most common causes of runaway projects is optimistic estimation.”
Enough said? No, you will need to ponder the compendium prepared by Elsevier’s Robert Glass. It will be time well spent.
Stephen Arnold, November 9, 2008
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