“Once out of the realm of little programs, such as the ones you wrote in school, the economics of software take on a strange reversal in which the cheapest programs to own are the ones that are the most expensive to write, and the most expensive programs are the cheapest to write.”

– Alan Cooper in The Inmates Are Running The Asylum

Mr. Cooper tries to make the point that programs that are done well cost less to run and maintain than programs slapped together as quickly as possible.