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Poor Image of Maintenance Work

publish date: 2026/06/24 21:16:13.790292 UTC

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Why does maintenance work being seen as a less skilled process create additional cost and risk?

It is illegal to assign experienced staff to maintenance projects

It is often allocated to the least experienced staff, who may also lack experience with the obsolete languages used by older systems

Maintenance staff are required to have more years of experience than development staff in every case

Maintenance work is always automated, removing the need for any staff at all

Correct Answer

It is often allocated to the least experienced staff, who may also lack experience with the obsolete languages used by older systems

Explanation

Maintenance has a poor image among software engineers and is often allocated to the least experienced staff. Since old systems may use obsolete programming languages, these less experienced developers may also need to learn those languages, adding further time and cost to the maintenance effort.

Reference

Software Engineering, Ian Sommerville, 10th edition

Quizzes you can take where this question appears

Why Maintenance Costs More Than New Development