Reflections on capital-intensive software technology

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Abstract
"Capital" is defined as a reusable resource, and it is shown that many software engineering activities are capital-intensive in the sense that they serve to create reusable resources. Just as the Eskimo has many different words for snow, we have many words for reusability, including commonality, portability, modularity, abstraction, generality, equivalence, maintainability, adaptability, and sharability. A plausible conclusion is that reusability of the resources we create is as important in our lives as snow is in the life of the Eskimo. The definition of capital in terms of reusability suggests that the reason for the importance of reusability is in part economic. But the drive to create permanent rather than transitory artifacts has aesthetic and intellectual as well as economic motivations, and is part of man's desire for immortality.

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