Re: Rocks and Debian packages (was: Re: Rocks vs Debian packages (was: How to distribute Boyer-Moore code?))

[Gerhard Sittig <Gerhard.Sittig@...>]

On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 01:12 -0400, Norman Ramsey wrote:
> 
> I think you'll find the more Lua succeeds the fewer members of the
> community create software that is reusable by others.  Years ago I
> read an IBM document that says if a program works for you, making it
> work for someone else will require triple your original effort, and
> making it a product will require triple that effort.  I've never done
> a product but have released plenty of stuff open source and that
> factor of three is a pretty good estimate.

Just for the record:  That probably was "The Mythical Man-Month" (Essays
on Software Engineering) by Frederick Brooks, Jr.  Despite of its age
it's still an interesting book to read, and the anniversary edition
(available from Addison-Wesley) contains additional chapters with
"hindsight" and addressing feedback to the original publication.  If it
wasn't that book, then the number comes from one that Brooks is citing.
The Mythical Man-Month is some kind of eye opener in several aspects and
still has a lot of points which aren't (or seem to not be) common
knowlegde these days.


virtually yours
Gerhard Sittig
-- 
     If you don't understand or are scared by any of the above
             ask your parents or an adult to help you.