From: lamaster@george.arc.nasa.gov (Hugh LaMaster -- RCS)
Subject: Re: Do Software Engineers Actualy Do So Badly?
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 01:03:29 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.060652.10180@tcsi.com>, Michael Turner (miket@tcs.com) writes:
|> In article <1992Oct10.040112.16113@nstn.ns.ca> bushell@fox.nstn.ns.ca (Tom Bushell) writes:
|> >
|> >
|> >In the article that started this whole thread, Ken Magel asks:
|> >
|> >>Do Software Engineers Actually Do So Badly?
|> >>
|> >In Brad Cox's book: "Object Oriented Programming" from 1986, he
|> >quotes an inquiry carried through by the U.S. Government
|> >Accounting
|> >Office in 1979, in which a breakdown of software costs versus
|> >actual
|> >results is performed (FGMSD-80-4). The results at that time were:
|> >
|> >Software paid for but not delivered: 47%
|> >Software delivered but not used:     29%
|> >Software abandoned or reworked:      19%
|> >Software used after change:           3%
|> >Software used as delivered:           2%
|> >
|>
|> Granted, this is *government* work, but it compels the question: why
|> is a failure rate like this tolerated?  Clearly, it must be.  I wouldn't
|> be surprised if these figures reflect a waste of taxpayer's money
|> that outstrips all that was lost in the S&L fiasco.  Why is there no
|> congressional inquiry going on?
 
Clearly someone must have been interested in understanding it, or there
would have been no such major study, if indeed that is what took place.
 
While no doubt "waste, fraud, and abuse" go on, in government work as
well as the private sector, one think I think people should ask themselves
is:  "How does this compare to other design processes?"  For example, if
we return to the Chunnel, suppose someone had spent a number of $ Millions
trying to design a Chunnel which would be an economic success, and could
not figure out a way.  If they then dropped the project, you might say,
"Well, it is too bad you wasted so much time and money on something that
did not work out, but at least you didn't try to build something when
you knew you couldn't meet your project cost requirements."  You would
probably not say to them, "Gee, somebody paid for a working Chunnel design, 
and you didn't deliver it", or, "You delivered it, but you didn't use it."
Or, maybe if you had to rework the design a few times to get the cost down,
"You had to rework the design a few times.  How dare you!"  Indeed, if the
designer did finally get a workable Chunnel design which met the cost goals, 
you might consider that person pretty smart, and those *private* Chunnel 
investors would *love* him.
 
The thing which one must keep in mind with software is that the
*design* component of project costs is very high (something also true of
a number of aerospace systems) compared to, for example, Civil Engineering
projects.  And therefore costs are very variable.  This seems to bother a
lot of people, who still think we are in a "crisis" after over 20 years  ;-)
 
P.S. The S&L bailout is much more expensive than you think!
 
:
:
 
|> The fact is, the payback on investment in software projects is often
|> not carefully measured (or measured at all).  In large organizations
|> (governmental and corporate) all over the world, powerful people who
|> don't have much of a clue about computers are charged with the
|> responsibility of computerizing one thing or another.
 
Maybe so, but U.S. service industries are the most computerized in the
world, and, according to a report I read about last night, the most
productive.  It is hard to say how much computer-based systems have
played in this, because they are so pervasive.  But, I think it is safe
to say, that despite the fact that software costs are hard to predict,
the "visionaries" haven't been all wrong.
 
                            As DeMarco says, you can't control what you
|> can't measure, and you sure can't measure what people aren't telling
|> you about.
 
I think a lot of software project costs *are* measured.  The problem is,
it is hard to predict software costs *in advance*.   

Software projects are a little like Venture Capital.  You have to roll 
the dice intelligently so that for every ten startups, you get a winner.
 
|>
|> Software is expensive, but unlike a building or bridge or a tunnel,
|> it occupies almost no space.  Magnetic tapes containing working-but-
|> unused software look just like ones that contain non-working software.
|> Embarassments are easily covered up.
|>
|> Maybe that's why we need cyberspace: how else could most people see how
|> monumentally expensive--and monumentally bad--most software is unless
|> there were some monuments they could go and visit?
|> ---
|> Michael Turner
|> miket@tcs.com
 

-- 
  Hugh LaMaster, M/S 233-9,     UUCP:      ames!lamaster
  NASA Ames Research Center     Internet:  lamaster@ames.arc.nasa.gov
  Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000  Or:        lamaster@george.arc.nasa.gov 
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Newsgroups: comp.software-eng