... in the software development industries, we happen to produce huge amounts of it...

Your analysis neglects two pieces of information I've found relevant on my projects.

First, code which produces a return on investment today produces tangible value today, even if that code will become scrap in the future.

Second, code which helps me discover a better approach also produces tangible value.

I've written a lot of code I've suspected I would have to revise and rewrite in the future as the project took on more responsibilities. I am often right about needing to do this, but I am often subtly wrong about how the code will need to change until the point at which I absolutely must make the change.

Fortunately software is pure thought-stuff, divorced from the petty tyrannies of material economics, so discarding a thousand lines of code in a dozen files favor of a hundred lines in one file may not be a waste at all.

In reply to Re: "Bah! Scrumbug!" (Lessons from the scrap-bin) by chromatic
in thread "Bah! Scrumbug!" (Lessons from the scrap-bin) by locked_user sundialsvc4

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