Most systems I've ever worked with (I end up working on existing systems much more than implementing from scratch) are brittle somewhere in the sense of being potentially incompatible with some random enhancement X sans major rewrites. And when major rewrites aren't possible we resort to complexity.
As developers we're all aware of this and often refer to it as managing technical debt, no?
I was aware this could come across the that way when posting and am no paragon of perfection, but that doesn't change my perception. Technical debt is technical debt, and a brittle and complex system that evolves as a patchwork is just an admission of software development driven by bad process.
Most systems I've ever worked with (I end up working on existing systems much more than implementing from scratch) are brittle somewhere in the sense of being potentially incompatible with some random enhancement X sans major rewrites. And when major rewrites aren't possible we resort to complexity.
As developers we're all aware of this and often refer to it as managing technical debt, no?