From: Ken Garlington <garlingtonke@lmtas.lmco.com>
Subject: Re: System Engineering (was Re: Ariane 5 failure)
Date: 1996/10/04
Date: 1996-10-04T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <325553C5.E2B@lmtas.lmco.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: mheaney-ya023180000210962257430001@news.ni.net
Matthew Heaney wrote:
>
> It's never cost effective to skimp on hardware if it means human
> programmers have to write more complex software.
Never say never!
Take an example of building, say, 1,000 units of some widget containing 1,500
source lines of code. For ease of calculation, assume $100/workerhour, 150
w-hours/w-month.
1. Buy a CPU at $50/unit which will do the job, but will cause the software
development team to spend 10 w-months to complete the task, and will cause
the post-deployment cost to be 2x the development cost.
10 w-months to complete the original development is $100 x 150 x 10 = $150,000.
Maintenance is $300,000. Total software cost per unit (amortized over several
years, possibly, for the maintenance): $450/unit.
2. Buy a CPU at $300/unit which will do the job, and because it's so modern,
the software development team only needs 5 w-months to complete the task, and
the post-deployment cost is only 1x the development cost. In other words, the
software development time is cut in half (the standard promise for such
improvements). So, software cost: $225/unit.
Assuming I did my math right, I'd be buying some cheap hardware right about now...
--
LMTAS - "Our Brand Means Quality"
For more info, see http://www.lmtas.com or http://www.lmco.com
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1996-10-04 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 13+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1996-10-01 0:00 Ariane 5 failure Marin David Condic, 407.796.8997, M/S 731-93
1996-10-02 0:00 ` Alan Brain
1996-10-02 0:00 ` Ken Garlington
1996-10-02 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1996-10-04 0:00 ` Robert S. White
1996-10-05 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-10-06 0:00 ` Ariane 5 failure - latest S/W tech vs. cold hard facts Robert S. White
1996-10-10 0:00 ` Ken Garlington
1996-10-05 0:00 ` Ariane 5 failure Alan Brain
1996-10-06 0:00 ` Robert S. White
1996-10-04 0:00 ` Ken Garlington [this message]
1996-10-03 0:00 ` Alan Brain
1996-10-04 0:00 ` Ken Garlington
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