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Discussion on: Software Plants

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cacilhas profile image
Montegasppα Cacilhας

I disagree with your opinion. Buildings are static rocks, Software are alive and soft. There’s no analogy.

Yet your voice is welcome. 😉

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joelbonetr profile image
JoelBonetR 🥇 • Edited

An analogy covers conceptual similarities between the noun and the original "something", I catch your analogy with the tractor and your reasons, but software isn't moving anywhere, it's hosted quietly on a place, distributed or not and it's structure is more solid than you ensure. You can't change the framework, language or hosting easily, it's a hard job that takes time and sometimes it's near impossible.
I can bet on your point of view on a little project but on a big one things are not that soft "as is", that's the reason to be of micro services and their architecture and patterns that makes this theoretical building to become a city of little buildings, each one with it's responsibilities, which is more accurate (now thinking on a bunch of little tractors as comparison I remembered this scene of Cars and I'm laughing my ass off: youtube.com/watch?v=HF0s-pXOHck)

Oh and... nope. Software is not alive, it's a product made by developers, just like a handmade chair, nothing special into it.

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cacilhas profile image
Montegasppα Cacilhας • Edited

Well… “software isn’t moving anywhere” is not a crossed bridge… ¯\_㋡_/¯

And I thought the “conceptual similarities” was clear in my text, if it’s not, I apologise.

About your “betting,” I “bet” I’ve been through a lot of “big projects” in my career, and they endorse my point.

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joelbonetr profile image
JoelBonetR 🥇 • Edited

I would like to understand the origin of your point of view, why do you say software is "alive" and "soft"?

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cacilhas profile image
Montegasppα Cacilhας

OK, that’s a very good point!

The “building”-like software perception leads to the idea of a hard thing, something static. That vision has been coined a long ago, and consolidated in the 90’s, when you got “final” releases that shouldn’t change. Any changes would come in the next releases.

Google and Ericsson, among others, realised the software is “soft”, it can grow and change anytime, like a living being – the perpetual beta.

That vision has changed the way we look to software, taking it away from the building-like.

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joelbonetr profile image
JoelBonetR 🥇 • Edited

It's a good point, I keep seeing it as building-like but just like a separate concepts on structure and interior design, I'll reflect about that later :)

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v6 profile image
🦄N B🛡

The “building”-like software perception leads to the idea of a hard thing, something static. That vision has been coined a long ago, and consolidated in the 90’s, when you got “final” releases that shouldn’t change. Any changes would come in the next releases.

I've argued against this persistent Taylorism in the software world almost endlessly, at all levels.

Do you have any sources for when this was consolidated in the 1990s?