Comment Re:Always be wary of extrapolating (Score 1) 397
The right story to cite is Robert Heinlein's "The year of the jackpot". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_the_Jackpot
Very few studies of software as it is and as it runs.
Try http://www.research.ibm.com/people/n/nickmitchell/publications/lcsd2005.pdf to a paper called "Diary of a Datum" and http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1297046 to another paper called "The causes of bloat, the limits of health". Both describe studies of large running applications in situ.
Full disclosure - I work for IBM Research and these papers were by folks in my department.
"Help Mr. Wizard!" -- Tennessee Tuxedo