cost of change

[James Logajan]

Galen Swint wrote:
> Has anyone tried to figure out how much changes to Python cost? The way I
> figure it, it goes something like this:
> 500,000 Python programmers

Sounds way too high. At least I don't think that is the correct order of
magnitude.

> $20/hr

A little too low. But at least in the correct order of magnitude.

> 3 hrs to port *all* needed code

Again, sounds low. But order of magnitude looks correct (i.e. probably under
30 hours _on average_). One has to include testing that provide adequate
code coverage. For GUI and many apps this probably can't be automated.

> Thats $30 *million*, and all those numbers are surely low -- especially the
> time to port.

Best one could hope to guess is several million dollars. This assumes most
everyone tries to track the language changes.