Will your software outlast the original developers? Almost certainly yes. But will you be able to maintain it?
That’s one thing about being in the software development business as long as I have – you gain a very healthy respect for the value of maintenance. Sure, the studies all show that maintenance costs 50%-80% of the total life-cycle cost of software, but there’s nothing like living through the entire life-cycle of multiple software projects to really understand that.
You spend a lot of time thinking about what you might have done earlier on to make life easier now.
Which is why my latest Pluralsight course, Building Software That Lasts – A Guide to Maintainable Software, is perhaps the most important course I’ve published. If not the most important, it’s certainly the one with the greatest potential to have a real impact on the cost of software.
This is not a theoretical course full of recommendations that sound great, but never put into practice. This course was born from pain – and the sure knowledge that in many cases, especially in today’s fast paced development world, maintenance and maintainability is the last thing on anyone’s mind, or in anyone’s budget. So while yes, I do discuss best practices, I spend a lot of time focused on processes and practices that are simple and cheap – and that might actually get done even when budgets are tight and speed is of the essence.
So I invite you to check it out and tell your friends. Even if you just pick up a few ideas, they’ll be worth it – that’s the thing about maintenance: a small investment now can save you a fortune in time and effort later on.