Robert L. Glass on Forgotten fundamental facts about Software Engineering

Very interesting article by Robert L. Glass about the Frequently Forgotten Fundamental Facts about Software Engineering , a collection of vital facts that we should keep in mind when developing software.

The article covers several aspects of the development process as the people (e.g. good programmers are up to 30 times better than mediocre programmers), complexity (e.g. for every 10-percent increase in problem complexity, there is a 100-percent increase in the software solution’s complexity), tools (e.g. learning a new tool or technique actually lowers programmer productivity and product quality initially), quality and reliability (e.g. software that a typical programmer believes to be thoroughly tested has often had only about 55 to 60 percent of its logic paths executed), efficiency (e.g. efficiency is more often a matter of good design than of good coding), maintenance (e.g. maintenance typically consumes about 60 percent average of software costs), requirements and design (one of the two most common causes of runaway projects is unstable requirements), reviews and inspections (rigorous reviews are more effective, and more cost effective, than any other error-removal strategy), reuse (reuse-in-the-large remains largely unsolved), estimation (because estimates are so faulty, there is little reason to be concerned when software projects do not meet cost or schedule targets) and research dimensions (many software researchers advocate rather than investigate)