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Site is down, but there a lot of things to contribute to the cost of software: 1. Business doesn't know what they want, or can't communicate it well. 2. Busine
by Clubber 9y ago
Site is down, but there a lot of things to contribute to the cost of software:
1. Business doesn't know what they want, or can't communicate it well.
2. Business reluctant to go with startups and rather pay out the nose for large, entrenched and very expensive companies (Oracle Applications, SAP, rent chargers, etc)
3. Scope creep, scope changes mid development.
4. Negative productivity developers (who make things worse)
5. Absolutely poor hiring practices industry wide.
6. Vendor lock in.
7. Poor development tools and languages (weak-typed js makes refactoring 10x harder).
8. Overburdening development processes.
9. Inter-departmental friction for developing software.
10. Hands off, ivory tower management.
11. Trying to make software fit everybody.
12. Security concerns.
These are just off the top of my head. There are many many more. Having said all that, that's why software costs what it does. As far as it being expensive, if it's more expensive than the manual way of doing it, don't buy it. If your company is competent enough to roll your own, do it. It's a hell of a lot cheaper than folders, paper and filing cabinets (just ask the VA).
- cm2187 9y agoI would add to the list: 13. CV driven development 14. developers with no interest in the underlying domain they are trying to solve making bad design decisions 15. excessive bureaucracy of IT department & rigid policies
- DoofusOfDeath 9y ago"CV" as in Constant-Velocity? Sounds like an Agile concept ;)
- twinkletwinkle 9y agoYou're probably being sarcastic but I think the parent meant Curriculum Vitae. Making technical decisions based on what will look good on your resume instead of what's the best way to solve the problem at hand.
- ta09123401924 9y agoChicken and egg perhaps; as a Java contractor back in the day, I noticed the eventual creep of Ruby on Rails stealing some of it's limelight, then JavaScript or whatever the new hotness became (not saying JavaScript is in any way hot there). As a contractor, I was compelled to learn those technologies because the companies were demanding these skills, not because I had a desire to learn another scripting language or whatever. Of course, it's often (senior) developers within the company that push the new, less-well-travelled technologies and the cycle repeats. I guess the lesson is, don't let frontend developers dictate that JavaScript should be on the server, or is in fact a good language for desktop apps and so on.
- DoofusOfDeath 9y agoNot sarcastic - just going for a low-hanging pun.
- lurker456 9y ago13. It's a market for lemons [1]. Schneier wrote about it in the context of security related software, but it equally applies to bespoke stuff like CRM or SCM. [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/04/a_security_mark.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/04/a_security_ma...