Software maintenance

In software engineering, software maintenance is the modification of a software product after delivery to correct faults, to improve performance or other attributes.

A common perception of maintenance is that it merely involves fixing defects.

However, one study indicated that over 80% of maintenance effort is used for non-corrective actions.

This perception is perpetuated by users submitting problem reports that in reality are functionality enhancements to the system.

More recent studies put the bug-fixing proportion closer to 21%.

See also

• Code refactoring
• Maintainability
• Unmaintainable code

External links

• Software maintenance @ Wikipedia