RE: Cost per page metrics

["Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>]

Peter Neilson wrote:
 
> Wisdom begins to arrive when you realize that although 90% of the
> project uses up 90% of the resources, the remaining 10% of the project
> uses up the other 90%.
> 
> Is there a name for this principle? It's not Pareto's. Did Pareto maybe
> have a crazy step-cousin?

That's a generalization of Cargill's Law of Software Development (from Tom Cargill of Bell Labs): 

"The first 90% of the software code takes 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of the code takes up the other 90% of the time." 

It's sometimes called the 90/90 rule. 

It's conceptually related to Hofstadter's Law (from Doug Hofstadter, author of _Gödel, Escher, Bach_): 

"It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."

Richard


Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
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