Home » Technology » Software Re-engineering » Conclusion drawn from comparison.

Conclusion drawn from comparison.

© Faisal Bin Bashir

Hypertext documents have technical properties and qualities similar to those that have made software maintenance such a problem. While Web document maintenance will certainly be a challenge, the size and importance of that challenge will depend upon the answers to three questions:

 How important will Web documents be to business?

 Will their importance be related to how current their information is?

 What is the degree of error that can be tolerated and is it greater for Web pages than for software?

For the Web, these questions are still difficult, if not impossible, to answer. While Web pages are proliferating, many, such as personal pages, contain information allowing a high degree of error. Business use, though, is also growing, and pages bearing on financial, legal, and other critical issues must be kept current.

The factors I have described point to a future problem with Web maintenance. The hypertext Maintenance Mountain looms in front of us, and we must prepare to conquer it now. Our experience with software can point the way.

References

"Hypertext: The Next Maintenance Mountain" by Pearl Brereton, David Budgen and Geoff Hamilton

The copyright of the article Conclusion drawn from comparison. in Software Re-engineering is owned by . Permission to republish Conclusion drawn from comparison. in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.