Software: Evolving to Non Motility

January 5, 2021

I read a quite interesting essay called “The Great Software Stagnation.” The main idea is that software innovation has slowed. A number of programming languages were identified as examples of greater software innovation and some others as less innovative. The idea is that software has shifted from breakthroughs to incremental improvements.

However, the essay contains several statements which I found thought provoking; for instance:

  • You can’t do research at a startup
  • Megacorps only seem to be interested in solving their own problems in the least disruptive way possible
  • “Maybe the reason progress stopped in 1996 is that we invented everything.”

What if this stagnation, motionless, or non motility is a characteristic of some sort of digital law; for example, the premise of zero gravity articulated by Steve Harmon?

Maybe Newton’s boring laws apply to the digital environment? Maybe there are more of these digital laws waiting to be articulated?

Stephen E Arnold, January 5, 2020

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