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From: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox)
Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: How to pay for reusable software
Message-ID: <6761@stpstn.UUCP>
Date: 7 Apr 91 20:22:08 GMT
References: <1991Apr3.231849.13410@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <RSW.91Apr4182149@tahiti.cs.brown.EDU>
Reply-To: cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox)
Organization: Stepstone
Lines: 47

In article <RSW.91Apr4182149@tahiti.cs.brown.EDU> rsw@cs.brown.EDU (Bob Weiner) writes:
>In article <1991Apr3.231849.13410@m.cs.uiuc.edu> johnson@cs.uiuc.EDU (Ralph Johnson) writes:
>
>> For the last few years I have been learning how to make software
>> reusable.
>...
>> The real problem is that it is so hard to create reusable
>> software.
>> 
>> This leads to an interesting problem: how can we afford to pay the
>> costs of developing reusable software?

Thanks, Bob, for reposting Ralph's question...I'd missed it somehow.
(@#$$% usenet gremlins)

The organizational motivation for reusability is specialization of
labor; making a tree-structured industry of what was previously a
monolithic collection of cottage industry skilled craftsmen; a
heterogeneous tree of specialized craftsmen instead of a homogeneous
collection of programmers all with the same skill set.

But Ralph has his finger on the key obstacle to doing this...finding a
way to keep the roots of this tree from starving.

I believe the demand for a market in reusable components is high, but
the supply is low, because of exactly what Ralph has identified; that
the costs of building reusable components is extremely high, higher
than those who have not tried to do this for a living is probably
realize.

For example, in my own experience (these are measured numbers based on
nearly a decade of actually doing it), the costs of building something
reusable are at least ten times higher than the costs of building it in
the first place, and possibly much more. I'm referring to the costs of
testing, documenting, porting (and retesting and sometimes
redocumenting), advertising, marketing and selling. Note that the 10x
costs are not easily amenable to technological assistance.

If I'm right that the demand exceeds the supply, the situation will
develop in a fashion economists are familiar with...prices will rise
until reusable component producers decide that the gain exceeds the
risk.

-- 

Brad Cox; cox@stepstone.com; CI$ 71230,647; 203 426 1875
The Stepstone Corporation; 75 Glen Road; Sandy Hook CT 06482