Periodic reminder that *path dependence* is pervasive. Many structures and solutions we have today are artifacts of the paths we took to arrive at them, and of problems we once had and may not currently have, and are not what we might have had if we designed from scratch.
It's worth periodically thinking about how you'd design something from scratch. You can't always throw something away in favor of a rewrite, but you can think about whether you can incrementally work towards something better, and about which aspects the iterated embodiments of solutions to past problems are still important and which aren't.
It's worth periodically thinking about how you'd design something from scratch. You can't always throw something away in favor of a rewrite, but you can think about whether you can incrementally work towards something better, and about which aspects the iterated embodiments of solutions to past problems are still important and which aren't.
@josh Gall's Law: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.
http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/Systemantics
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@billseitz @josh I think I'd want to see the evidence base for that conclusion.
