Software maintainability: A practical concern for life-cycle costs

Abstract

Life-cycle costs for software today are very expensive, with the costs of post-operational maintenance and modification often exceeding the original development cost. This generally occurs because software requirements are dynamic and ever-changing. True turnkey software is the exception, not the rule. Building software which is easily modifiable does not happen naturally; it must be carefully contracted for and the development of modifiable software, its support tools and its documentation, must be judiciously managed and tested. There are software engineering techniques which, if implemented, can reduce the cost for evolving software during its useful life cycle. Equally true, there are documentation techniques that can clearly improve the effectiveness of maintenance personnel.