Bulldozer00's Blog

Archeosclerosis is sclerosis of the software architecture. It is a common malady that afflicts organizations that don’t properly maintain and take care of their software products throughout the lifecycle.

The time lapsed figure below shows the devastation caused by the failure to diligently keep entropy growth in check over the lifetime of a product. On the left, we have a four process application program that satisfies a customer need. On the right, we have a snapshot of the same program after archeosclerosis has set in.

Usually, but not always, the initial effort to develop the software yields a clean design that’s easy to maintain and upgrade. Over time, as new people come on board and the original developers move on to other assignments, the structure starts turning brittle. Bug fixes and new feature additions become swashbuckling adventures into the unknown and lessons in futility.

Fueled by schedule pressure and the failure of management to allocate time for periodic refactoring, developers shoehorn in new interfaces and modules. Pre-existing components get modified and lengthened. The original program structure fragments and the whole shebang morphs into a jagged quagmire.

Of course, the program’s design blueprints and testing infrastructure suffer from neglect too. Since they don’t directly generate revenue, money, time, and people aren’t allocated to keep them in sync with the growing software hairball. Besides, since all resources are needed to keep the house of cards from collapsing, no resources can be allocated to these or any other peripheral activities.

As long as the developer org has a virtual monopoly in their market, and the barriers to entry for new competitors are high, the company can stay in business, even though they are constantly skirting the edge of disaster.