Barry Boehm: Economics

Barry Boehm is American software engineer. Explore interesting quotes on economics.

Barry Boehm: 36 quotes0 likes

“Economic principles underlie the overall structure of the software lifecycle, and its primary refinements of prototyping, incremental development, and advancemanship. The primary economic driver of the life-cycle structure is the significantly increasing cost of making a software change or fixing a software problem, as a function of the phase in which the change or fix is made.”

Source: Software engineering economics. (1984), p. 4

“The dictionary defines "economics" as "a social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services." Here is another definition of economics which I think is more helpful in explaining how economics relates to software engineering.
Economics is the study of how people make decisions in resource-limited situations.
This definition of economics fits the major branches of classical economics very well.
Macroeconomics is the study of how people make decisions in resource-limited situations on a national or global scale. It deals with the effects of decisions that national leaders make on such issues as tax rates, interest rates, foreign and trade policy.
Microeconomics is the study of how people make decisions in resource-limited situations on a more personal scale. It deals with the decisions that individuals and organizations make on such issues such as how much insurance to buy, which word processor to buy, or what prices to charge for their products or services.”

Source: Software engineering economics. (1984), p. 4

“Software Engineering Economics is an invaluable guide to determining software costs, applying the fundamental concepts of microeconomics to software engineering, and utilizing economic analysis in software engineering decision making.”

Barry W. Boehm (1981) Software engineering economics. Abstract.

“If we look at the discipline of software engineering, we see that the microeconomics branch of economics deals more with the types of decisions we need to make as software engineers or managers.”

Source: Software engineering economics. (1984), p. 4

“Throughout the software life cycle, there are many decision situations involving limited resources in which software engineering economics techniques provide useful assistance.”

Source: Software engineering economics. (1984), p. 4