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Jeff Kaufman
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Accidentally Load Bearing July 13th, 2023
                              house, tech

Sometimes people will talk about Chesterton's Fence, the idea that if
you want to change something--removing an apparently useless fence--you
should first determine why it was set up that way:

    The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by
    somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly
    improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for
    some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for
    thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know
    what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason
    was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked
    some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human
    beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and
    mysterious. -- G. K. Chesterton, The Drift From Domesticity

Figuring out something's designed purpose can be helpful in
evaluating changes, but a risk is that it puts you in a frame of mind
where what matters is the role the original builders intended.

A few years ago I was rebuilding a bathroom in our house, and there
was a vertical stud that was in the way. I could easily tell why it
was there: it was part of a partition for a closet. And since I knew
its designed purpose and no longer needed it for that anymore, the
Chesterton's Fence framing would suggest that it was fine to remove
it. Except that over time it had become accidentally load bearing:
through other (ill conceived) changes to the structure this stud was
now helping hold up the second floor of the house. In addition to
considering why something was created, you also need to consider what
additional purposes it may have since come to serve.

This is a concept I've run into a lot when making changes to complex
computer systems. It's useful to look back through the change
history, read original design documents, and understand why a
component was built the way it was. But you also need to look closely
at how the component integrates into the system today, where it can
easily have taken on additional roles.

 
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Jeff Kaufman
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