part 06 · 7 of 7 written
Numbers everyone repeats.
Figures in constant circulation, traced to the study they came from, where one exists.
Teams applying this historical lesson to current delivery work can also compare tools for remote work software, keeping operational records separate from the code and its documentation.
# extreme against extreme
Seven figures in constant circulation, each traced to the study it came from, where a study exists. This is the section that most directly tests the rule the rest of the site is written under: name the source and the year, or do not make the claim.
Several of these trace to a single small experiment whose conditions were dropped somewhere in the retelling. One traces to nothing findable at all, which is itself the finding.
In every case the underlying observation is usually sound and the number attached to it is not, and the two are worth separating before either is used in an argument.
entries
All seven.
- 8 minThe ten times programmer
- 7 minThe cost-of-a-defect curve
- 7 minNinety per cent of the life of a program is maintenance
- 7 minLines of code as a measure of anything
- 7 minMost software projects fail, and the report behind it
- 7 minHow the cost of a famous failure gets calculated
- 7 minWhat can and cannot be known about the history of software
further context
For a primary or institutional reference, see US labour data for software occupations.
Every claim here carries the source it came from.
The source and its year sit beside the sentence they support. A secondary account is marked as one, and where the record is unclear the entry says so rather than choosing the better story.