<story><title>Software Rot (2017)</title><url>https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/02/28/software-rot/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>notacoward</author><text>The examples don&amp;#x27;t seem to illustrate software &lt;i&gt;rot&lt;/i&gt; at all. Rather, I&amp;#x27;d say they illustrate software &lt;i&gt;ossification&lt;/i&gt;. Over time, each example became more rigid and hard to change because things that should have been modularized and isolated in one place instead became idioms pervading the entire codebase. (The &amp;quot;should have&amp;quot; is arguable, I know. There&amp;#x27;s a broader point about idioms vs. modules that deserves its own blog post.) Rot would be when a program works less and less over time because its external dependencies vanish or change and the program itself stops adapting.&lt;p&gt;Software that is merely &lt;i&gt;rotten&lt;/i&gt; can often be saved, with varying levels of effort and skill. Software that is &lt;i&gt;ossified&lt;/i&gt; often needs to be replaced.</text></comment>
<story><title>Software Rot (2017)</title><url>https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/02/28/software-rot/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>bluejekyll</author><text>&amp;quot;Chrome was written from scratch in far less time than it has taken Firefox to change.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This doesn&amp;#x27;t line up with my understanding of the history of Chrome. I thought Chrome was based on WebKit, therefor definitely not from scratch.&lt;p&gt;Edit: this post references lifting components from WebKit and Firefox in the initial version, &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;googleblog.blogspot.com&amp;#x2F;2008&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;fresh-take-on-browser.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;googleblog.blogspot.com&amp;#x2F;2008&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;fresh-take-on-browse...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>