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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BGR who wrote (79346)	4/11/2000 4:44:00 PM
From: Don Lloyd	Respond to of 132070

BGR - [[If Gordon failed to find productivity enhancements in s/w development sector - and I do not know if that is the case as I have only read second hand versions of the study - then it will be very surprising to me...]] Why would you expect increased productivity in the software development sector? Has the average value of sold software increased? Is there a new software language being used that allows the number of programmers and managers to be reduced? Are programs becoming less complex? Are colleges producing a large number of more efficient software engineers? I doubt if any of the above answers are yes. Are software projects being outsourced offshore to lower wage regions? Here the answer is probably yes, with India and Russia two primary candidates, but the increased management oversight difficulty may well offset the gains. Even talking about software and productivity in the same sentence is a jarring juxtaposition, IMO. Although it can never be measured, I claim that at least 90% of all lines of code ever written will never generate a positive economic return. This is the result of debugging, re-writing, programmer mobility, discontinued projects, late projects, etc. With the exception of pure software end products, most software is purely a cost of doing business, not a product in and of itself. Regards, Don

To: BGR who wrote (79346)	4/11/2000 4:49:00 PM
From: Michael Bakunin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Gordon's paper (last year's version) is here: faculty-web.at.nwu.edu -mb PS - When you say, "..further proof of market rationality, in that the S&P is lagging when compared to the NASDAQ, which is a little bit more overloaded with technology?", two responses: one, "a little bit" is something of an understatement (see my comparison at #reply-13398916 ); two, how can a general factor (technology) lead to a lead or a lag in an efficient market? It's only a half-step to active investment from there, Bukun. Welcome to the club. -g-