Software engineering economics
by Barry W. Boehm · first published 1981
10mentions
2recommended by
7HN commenters
2013–2026first – last mentioned
29% recommend71% neutral
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“Software Engineering Economics” or anything else written by Barry Boehm. He writes about old school software development methodology, i.e. not agile, but extremely fundamental nonetheless.
on “Ask HN: Good books that have documented software development wisdom of years?” ↗This is the classic reference book on software estimation; and yes, it still applies in 2022… Barry Boehm: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Boehm “Software Engineering Economics” https://archive.org/details/softwareengineer0000boeh
on ““Laws” of software estimation for complex work (2021)” ↗I would argue that the second rule is even optional here. There is enough literature (McConnell's Software Estimation, Boehm's Software Engineering Economics) that suggests that, given a well-scoped problem and other projects to base the estimation on, a good (+/-50% or so) estimate is possible. But if you don't know what you're building it's all wasted effort…
on “The Two Rules of Software Creation from Which Every Problem Derives” ↗…stuff: Boehm, Barry W., and Philip N. Papaccio. 1988. "Understanding and Controlling Software Costs." IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering SE-14, no. 10 (October): 1462-77. Boehm, Barry, 1981. Software Engineering Economics, Boston, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1981. Boehm, Barry, et al, 2000. Software Cost Estimation with Cocomo II, Boston, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 2000. Boehm, Barry W., T. E. Gray, and T. Seewaldt. 1984. "Prototyping…
on “There are no 10x developers, but there are 1/10 ones” ↗…method that's applied frequently even within organizations (I've worked in and with QA numerous times), and my copy of Cem Kaner's Testing Computer Software doesn't seem to address the matter. Boehm's Software Engineering Economics discusses software reliability modelling at page 181 (Chapter 10: Performance Models and Cost-Effectiveness Models). IEEE has "An efficient defect estimation method for software defect curves" which…
on “Broken by design: systemd” ↗With the right clay, you can make anything. Process is a second order effect. Team (not individual unless you work by yourself) competency rules. Boehm noted that in Software Engineering Economics many decades ago.
on “Agile Is a Glass Cannon” ↗There was another 1981 paper that went into this by Boehm "Software Engineering Economics", but I can't find the details right now. This NASA publication [1] cites a number of studies and the cost increase factors they estimate for various stages of development, including the Boehm study.…
on ““Bugs are 100x more expensive to fix in production” study might not exist (2021)” ↗Iirc, there is a quote from Barry Boehm, author of Software Engineering Economics, who said something in the effect of "I wish you hadn't persuaded me that requirements didn't change much in big military contracts" They do change, especially if projects take years. Not only do people…
on “Systems Thinking” ↗And married to Barry Boehm of Software Engineering Economics fame. That was one smart couple!
on “Sharla Boehm, the programmer whose code underpins the Internet” ↗…programmers". Either you are unaware of his work or are intentionally downplaying it. His wikipedia page lists his works/achievements for everybody to read/study. He was a first-class theorist in the fields of "Software Engineering Economics", "Software Process Methodologies" and "Software Engineering" to name a few. I am well aware of the works of Djikstra/Hoare/Wirth/etc. and how their work is different from that of Boehm's/Parnas'/etc.…
on “Niklaus Wirth, 1934-2024: Geek For Life” ↗