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Why Maintenance Has Historically Cost More Than Development

publish date: 2026/06/24 21:38:17.864336 UTC

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Which combination of factors best explains why adding equivalent functionality during maintenance has historically cost more than implementing it during initial development?

Maintenance staff are always paid more than development staff, increasing apparent cost

New teams must spend time understanding existing code, maintainable code is not incentivized when teams are separated, maintenance has a poor professional image, and ageing program structure degrades over time

Maintenance always requires buying brand-new hardware, regardless of the actual change needed

Maintenance is always performed in a different country, requiring expensive translation services

Correct Answer

Explanation

These four factors together explain the historical cost premium of maintenance: the time cost of program understanding by new teams, the lack of incentive to write maintainable code when development and maintenance are organizationally separated, the poor professional image of maintenance work leading to less experienced staffing, and the natural degradation of program structure as a system ages through repeated changes.

Reference

Software Engineering, Ian Sommerville, 10th edition

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