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Ask HN: Does the Pareto (80-20) Principle apply to software complexity?

1 pointsby luddite99about 3 years ago
Particularly from the point of view of Operating Systems and Web Browsers...<p>For example:<p>Does 80% of the code come from 20% of the functionality?<p>Do 80% of bugs come from 20% of features?<p>Does 80% of software complexity come from 20% of the functionality?

2 comments

dtagamesabout 3 years ago
I would say generally, &quot;Yes.&quot;<p>Definitely 80% of the bugs will come from 20% of the features. 80% of the usability and attraction is also from 20% of the features, but not necessarily the same ones.<p>Perhaps relatedly, about 70% of all software work is diagnosis and debugging. So a small subset of (maybe not so important) features causes most of the overall work in the project.
ubermanabout 3 years ago
From my experience &quot;yes&quot; in that 20% of the code requires 80% of the time&#x2F;resources to implement it.