[HN Gopher] Layers of change: How buildings and software are alike
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       Layers of change: How buildings and software are alike
        
       Author : colluder
       Score  : 21 points
       Date   : 2022-10-25 07:59 UTC (15 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (medium.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (medium.com)
        
       | toolslive wrote:
       | The next one that tells me they are alike will get me to agree:
       | both software projects and building projects are:
       | - always late and        - always more expensive than planned.
       | 
       | I guess that's not what they wanted to hear. (honestly, it's a
       | poor metaphor)
        
       | nathas wrote:
       | Why even think about software as a building at all? Just think
       | about it as software. I don't understand the urge to draw
       | parallels to other fields.
        
         | mahdi7d1 wrote:
         | I think it's a reference to the book "How buildings learn". I
         | haven't read the whole book but as far as I have read it goes
         | like this: people try to guess what the good building supposed
         | to be and build it but later they have a change of heart or
         | either some other people move to that building and have
         | completely different outlooks of what their home should be
         | like. Author argues there is levels to buildings and we should
         | build bottom levels in a way that won't hinder later changes to
         | upper layers because the bottom levels are unchangeable and you
         | would be better off destroying and rebuilding it if you want to
         | change those bottom layers. Software seems to be related in a
         | sense that the bottom layers of your app should be developed in
         | a way that won't be in the way of developing new features
         | because if that happens you would need to rewrite from ground
         | up.
        
           | mahdi7d1 wrote:
           | It was just hunch that the article is about that book and
           | after skimming the article seems like my hunch was right.
        
           | bhaney wrote:
           | Off-topic, but the item ID of your comment is 33333333.
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33333333
        
           | asplake wrote:
           | Good book, better (great) TV series
           | https://youtu.be/maTkAcDbrEY
        
         | withinboredom wrote:
         | I compare it to buildings a lot, especially when explaining
         | things to non-technical stakeholders.
        
         | midiguy wrote:
         | It's mainly to help software 'architects' sleep at night
        
         | doctor_eval wrote:
         | I think it's because this is an analogy that's used explicitly
         | and implicitly by non technical people. So I use the analogy in
         | order to refute it.
         | 
         | What I say is, software is almost nothing like a building.
         | Software doesn't get built once; it grows over time. Even if
         | you don't change the functionality, external factors like
         | security updates and changes in fashion force you to
         | continually update it over time. A much better analogy, if you
         | need one, is a garden or park.
        
       | chrisco255 wrote:
       | Software systems have always felt more organic to me than any
       | building. A building will go years without any major changes or
       | renovations. Your average modern software application sees
       | multiple changes per day. And the functionality of the software
       | evolves quite iteratively and rapidly over time. It also has to
       | respond to various environmental stresses.
        
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       (page generated 2022-10-25 23:01 UTC)