there's definitely sub-groups in the computer world who argue for stability. i've first encountered that in common lisp, but i think a recent interest in Ada is

there's definitely sub-groups in the computer world who argue for stability. i've first encountered that in common lisp, but i think a recent interest in Ada is also driven by similar concerns. don knuth with TeX and literate programming also comes to mind. for example i wrote my billing code almost 15 years ago, and it's common lisp code that spits out plain TeX file. i've added features to it, but if i were to attempt to run the first version, it'll work without any changes. honestly i personally think it's aesthetically pleasing to work with old code, with changelog spanning a decade, because of the richness of thought that went into it. like picking up a woodworking tool at a yard sale, and noticing all the different hints of care that went into it. arguing for stability in the face of other tradeoffs is an unpopular position. there are people who do it, but simply linking them from here will probably result in downvotes. i think arguments against systemd or in support of X11 come from people that want to escape the constant marginal benefit refactoring cycle.