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The author talks about a piece of software as if it were a closed system, where disorder would inevitably increase. This is not the case, disorder in software c
by sadgit 8y ago
The author talks about a piece of software as if it were a closed system, where disorder would inevitably increase. This is not the case, disorder in software can be decreased by doing work. However, the business requirements will inevitably become more complex over time, and there will come a point where the cost of adaptation of the software is higher than the cost of starting over with a design that better accomodates the current requirements. Inability to adapt is observed in ageing organisms also.
- amelius 8y agoIn software, the amount of energy needed to decrease the entropy by a fixed amount increases with entropy. This could be the difference, but I'm not a physicist.
- ranko 8y agoLehman's 2nd (increasing complexity) law addresses this. He defines an E-type system as one which is embedded in the "real world" and thus both influences and is influenced by it, and then claims that: "as an E-type system evolves, its complexity increases unless work is done to maintain or reduce it" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehman%27s_laws_of_software_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehman%27s_laws_of_software_ev...