From the Editor - An Ounce of Prevention.
Steve McConnell · 2001
stitch in time saves nine, ” the old saying goes. “An ounce of preven-tion is worth a pound of cure. ” In software, these expressions translate into the common observation that the longer a defect stays in process, the more expensive it is to fix.1 Industry reports about the magnitude of the cost increase have varied over the years. The highest ratio I’ve seen published came from Barry Boehm and Philip Papaccio in 1988.2 They reported that require-ments defects that made their way into the field could cost 50 to 200 times as much to correct as defects