2.5. Excellence Is Attainable
After the grim portrait of software performance that has been painted so far, you might be tempted to resign yourself to the status quo. You might rationalize that although you have problems, so does everyone else. You might conclude that you can't do any better. You might further conclude that the quality and productivity of the software industry are as good as they can get and it is the expectations that are out of line.
“The work of software development is largely incompressible.” (DeMarco, 1995)[15]
[15] Reprinted with the permission of Dorset House Publishing from Why Does Software Cost So Much? by Tom DeMarco. Copyright © 1995 by Tom DeMarco, pg. 8. All rights reserved.
However, there are projects that do succeed ...
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