Writing it now in a high-level language is cheaper than writing it in assembly, the way we would have 60 years ago. Languages keep getting better (for the most part). If they don't, well, the old one didn't die; you can keep using it.
Writing it now with today's libraries is cheaper than writing the same functionality without the libraries, the way we would have had to do 20 years ago. Libraries keep getting better (for the most part). If they don't, well, you can use the old one or roll your own.
The result of those two paragraphs is that it's always less expensive to write the exact same functionality as it was in the past, because the tools are better. But the problem is that we don't want to write the exact same functionality. We want to add this year's set of must-have features, so the scope is bigger than it was last year...
Writing it now in a high-level language is cheaper than writing it in assembly, the way we would have 60 years ago. Languages keep getting better (for the most part). If they don't, well, the old one didn't die; you can keep using it.
Writing it now with today's libraries is cheaper than writing the same functionality without the libraries, the way we would have had to do 20 years ago. Libraries keep getting better (for the most part). If they don't, well, you can use the old one or roll your own.
The result of those two paragraphs is that it's always less expensive to write the exact same functionality as it was in the past, because the tools are better. But the problem is that we don't want to write the exact same functionality. We want to add this year's set of must-have features, so the scope is bigger than it was last year...