Being able to tell if something doesn’t need to be updated is a separate question. There’s many signs such as lacking external dependencies, but the point is s

Being able to tell if something doesn’t need to be updated is a separate question. There’s many signs such as lacking external dependencies, but the point is such software exists not that there is an easy heuristic for finding it. I think the best examples are the reference implementation of some algorithm. There’s generally room for improvement, but keeping it simple is the point.