5 ms·

The estimate is that 80% of all effort in software goes to maintenance of existing systems, of which 21% goes into bug fixing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sof

by gizi 11y ago

The estimate is that 80% of all effort in software goes to maintenance of existing systems, of which 21% goes into bug fixing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_maintenance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_maintenance With every new system successfully brought online by one programmer, they are creating a future need for four programmers to maintain that system. Just to keep the existing body of software afloat, the existing body of programmers is dramatically insufficient. We have known this problem for decades. You will find lots of old papers raising exactly this issue. Concerning developing countries, to an important extent they have already been absorbed into the global workforce. Certainly India is already supplying its best and its brightest. Only a limited percentage of the workforce is capable of working as a programmer. Furthermore, developing countries increasingly consume their own supply of software services. Therefore, third-world supply may already be largely exhausted. With the world increasingly dependent on software (Has it every been increasingly dependent on lawyers?) stopping to hire programmers pretty much means scrapping systems on which organizations depend. This happens all the time already, but the net effect is still to add new systems.

toddkaufmann 11y ago
Programmers of the world, you are at the forefront of job creation!
zootar 11y ago
The world is increasingly dependent on lawyers, the demand for which increases with the size and complexity of the economy. More economic activity means more agreements to be negotiated, disputes to be resolved, and regulations to be enforced. Moreover, this is high-end legal work, and many new lawyers will enjoy long, lucrative careers. It's not clear to me that I should advise my children to embark on a short, low-pay, low-status career in legacy software maintenance.
- learc83 11y ago
  Who knows what the future will hold, but in the US, there are more new lawyers graduating each year than there are law jobs. Software has taken over many of the jobs the entry level lawyers used to perform. Law (in the US) reacquires an extra, very expensive, 3 year degree, and many law school graduates are never able to find jobs as lawyers. The market will probably eventually correct itself, but the days of law school as a sure-fire way to a high paying job are probably over.
  - zootar 11y ago
    The "more new lawyers graduating each year than there are law jobs" factoid is both stale and irrelevant. Most of those new lawyers had admissions scores well below the 50th percentile and are graduating from third and fourth tier law schools. Who cares about them? I doubt many would have had bright futures in programming, either. Relatively modest undergraduate performance can get you into a law school like Northwestern's, where 87% of the class of 2013 "found work and reported a salary", and at least 43% of the class had a starting salary of over $160k, a very respectable ending salary for a programmer, especially outside of SFBA (http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/northwestern/sals/2013/ http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/northwestern/sals/201...).
    - learc83 11y ago
      Almost 50% of new law school graduates can't find jobs. Of course it's likely that the unemployed 50% is the bottom 50% of applicants. Look at the distribution of lawyer income. There is a large group bunched near the bottom making 40k-60k a year, and a smaller group at the top making above 160k. You need to do really well to be in the 160k group. >Relatively modest undergraduate performance can get you into a law school like Northwestern's The median LSAT score for Northwestern is 168 about that's right at the 96th percentile, so about 4% of people taking the LSAT will score a 168. Even Northwestern's bottom quartile score is just below the 90th percentile. Their median undergrad GPA is 3.75. How are those numbers relatively modest? So yes, someone who scored in the 96th percentile on the LSAT and had a 3.75 GPA in undergrad has a decent chance of spending 3 years at a top tier law school where they have a 43% chance of making over $160k a year upon graduating. Northwestern also costs about $300k to attend. >87% of the class of 2013 "found work and reported a salary" I don't thinks that's really saying all that much. It doesn't say they're working in jobs requiring a law degree. Of course 87% are working at some kind of job--they owe $300k in student loans. Another way of looking at it is--13% of graduates from a top tier law school are unemployed with $300k in debt. No one is arguing that lawyers from top tier law schools can't make a decent salary, but there are only a few thousand slots open in the top law schools each year. If you're in the top few percent of law school applicants and you think you'd enjoy practicing law, then by all means go to law school. But looking at the averages, the median salary for a software developer is about $93k, and the median salary for a lawyer is $113k (from the bureau of labor statistics). Total cost for law school is over $150k on average, and the opportunity cost for not working as a software developer for 3 years is much more than that. Add in interest for student loans (and forgone interest on potential savings) and it will take over 2 decades before the average lawyer pulls ahead of the average software developer. Add to that the fact that software developer jobs are expected to grow at a significantly higher rate than lawyers, and that lawyers constantly place near the bottom on job satisfaction surveys. By the way I, initially planned to go to law school, but every lawyer I talked to was so discouraging that they eventually talked me out of it. A few of them were very successful family friends, but they absolutely hated their jobs, and they warned me that there are much easier ways of making money.
- wlievens 11y ago
  It depends on where you live and what factors you include. Where I live, I'd you just look at money, you'd probably be best of going into construction. You may make less than me, but due to how our taxes work, it'd take me decades to make in salary what the construction guy saves by (a) entering the labor force years earlier and (b) using his skills, network and resources to build his house for a fraction of what it'd cost me.
franciscop 11y ago
If you refer to this line: "over 80% of maintenance effort is used for non-corrective actions." it doesn't say that 80% of the software development effort goes to maintenance at all... it says that, of the X% maintenance effort, 80% is not used for bugs. Then it gives an example for the accuracy of this number, 21% of bugs, so 21%+80% ~= 100% It doesn't attempt to explain what X is at all. It could be 10% or 90%, however in my experience, and according to other's point of view[1], 60-90% of time dedicated to writing code being maintenance time sounds legit note: modifying = 5 * writing new code (20%). Understanding is another matter, but also important: [1] http://blog.codinghorror.com/when-understanding-means-rewriting/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/when-understanding-means-rewrit...

by gizi 11y ago

toddkaufmann 11y ago

Programmers of the world, you are at the forefront of job creation!

zootar 11y ago

The world is increasingly dependent on lawyers, the demand for which increases with the size and complexity of the economy. More economic activity means more agreements to be negotiated, disputes to be resolved, and regulations to be enforced. Moreover, this is high-end legal work, and many new lawyers will enjoy long, lucrative careers. It's not clear to me that I should advise my children to embark on a short, low-pay, low-status career in legacy software maintenance.

learc83 11y ago
Who knows what the future will hold, but in the US, there are more new lawyers graduating each year than there are law jobs. Software has taken over many of the jobs the entry level lawyers used to perform. Law (in the US) reacquires an extra, very expensive, 3 year degree, and many law school graduates are never able to find jobs as lawyers. The market will probably eventually correct itself, but the days of law school as a sure-fire way to a high paying job are probably over.
- zootar 11y ago
  The "more new lawyers graduating each year than there are law jobs" factoid is both stale and irrelevant. Most of those new lawyers had admissions scores well below the 50th percentile and are graduating from third and fourth tier law schools. Who cares about them? I doubt many would have had bright futures in programming, either. Relatively modest undergraduate performance can get you into a law school like Northwestern's, where 87% of the class of 2013 "found work and reported a salary", and at least 43% of the class had a starting salary of over $160k, a very respectable ending salary for a programmer, especially outside of SFBA (http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/northwestern/sals/2013/ http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/northwestern/sals/201...).
  - learc83 11y ago
    Almost 50% of new law school graduates can't find jobs. Of course it's likely that the unemployed 50% is the bottom 50% of applicants. Look at the distribution of lawyer income. There is a large group bunched near the bottom making 40k-60k a year, and a smaller group at the top making above 160k. You need to do really well to be in the 160k group. >Relatively modest undergraduate performance can get you into a law school like Northwestern's The median LSAT score for Northwestern is 168 about that's right at the 96th percentile, so about 4% of people taking the LSAT will score a 168. Even Northwestern's bottom quartile score is just below the 90th percentile. Their median undergrad GPA is 3.75. How are those numbers relatively modest? So yes, someone who scored in the 96th percentile on the LSAT and had a 3.75 GPA in undergrad has a decent chance of spending 3 years at a top tier law school where they have a 43% chance of making over $160k a year upon graduating. Northwestern also costs about $300k to attend. >87% of the class of 2013 "found work and reported a salary" I don't thinks that's really saying all that much. It doesn't say they're working in jobs requiring a law degree. Of course 87% are working at some kind of job--they owe $300k in student loans. Another way of looking at it is--13% of graduates from a top tier law school are unemployed with $300k in debt. No one is arguing that lawyers from top tier law schools can't make a decent salary, but there are only a few thousand slots open in the top law schools each year. If you're in the top few percent of law school applicants and you think you'd enjoy practicing law, then by all means go to law school. But looking at the averages, the median salary for a software developer is about $93k, and the median salary for a lawyer is $113k (from the bureau of labor statistics). Total cost for law school is over $150k on average, and the opportunity cost for not working as a software developer for 3 years is much more than that. Add in interest for student loans (and forgone interest on potential savings) and it will take over 2 decades before the average lawyer pulls ahead of the average software developer. Add to that the fact that software developer jobs are expected to grow at a significantly higher rate than lawyers, and that lawyers constantly place near the bottom on job satisfaction surveys. By the way I, initially planned to go to law school, but every lawyer I talked to was so discouraging that they eventually talked me out of it. A few of them were very successful family friends, but they absolutely hated their jobs, and they warned me that there are much easier ways of making money.
wlievens 11y ago
It depends on where you live and what factors you include. Where I live, I'd you just look at money, you'd probably be best of going into construction. You may make less than me, but due to how our taxes work, it'd take me decades to make in salary what the construction guy saves by (a) entering the labor force years earlier and (b) using his skills, network and resources to build his house for a fraction of what it'd cost me.

franciscop 11y ago

If you refer to this line: "over 80% of maintenance effort is used for non-corrective actions." it doesn't say that 80% of the software development effort goes to maintenance at all... it says that, of the X% maintenance effort, 80% is not used for bugs. Then it gives an example for the accuracy of this number, 21% of bugs, so 21%+80% ~= 100% It doesn't attempt to explain what X is at all. It could be 10% or 90%, however in my experience, and according to other's point of view[1], 60-90% of time dedicated to writing code being maintenance time sounds legit note: modifying = 5 * writing new code (20%). Understanding is another matter, but also important: [1] http://blog.codinghorror.com/when-understanding-means-rewriting/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/when-understanding-means-rewrit...