Personal Codes Of Ethics » Writing Code Of Ethics
Convert to C# - Opportunity Cost and Re-Writing Code
As a student of economics in my college days I learned quite a few fascinating principles.
Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. If by “learned,” one means “acquired” and “retained,” then perhaps I only really learned one principle. But it’s a good one: the principle of Opportunity Cost. According to Princeton’s WordNet, Opportunity Cost is defined as the “cost in terms of foregoing alternatives.” As a programmer by profession, this principle came to mind recently as my employer was deciding whether to have me re-write a block of code from Delphi to C#, or have it converted by a third party.
They were presented with a dilemma. Either have me spend months tediously converting thousands of lines of code, or fork out some cash to have a code conversion service do it for us. My initial thought was, “hey, why spend money on this when I can do it myself? I’m qualified and knowledgeable enough!” But I immediately realized that they would be spending money either way. The key question became: How much is my time really worth?
I spent a moment trying to figure that out myself. To follow my thought process, let’s walk through some simple calculations. Let’s say my services/skills are worth about $30/hr at my given profession and the project to convert this code takes 6 months of full-time development. If I work 8 hour days for 6 months that means it will cost $28,800 to complete the project.
I did some research recently and I discovered that there are services that convert to C# for a fraction of the cost that I would have incurred in salary. So in terms of opportunity cost, my company would be wise to recognize that I could be making more money for them by doing a different project and outsourcing this code re-writing, than if I were to re-write the code myself.
When considering re-writing code it would be wise to weigh the opportunity cost. And besides, who wants to wade through that much code anyways?
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