31–40 of 52 posts
It looks like the exponential model isn't a good fit at all -- in all cases it undershoots the decay at the start of the graph and overshoots at the tail end. So while it might "look close" there is some systematic that your model doesn't account for. In particular, I don't agree that all code in a codebase has a constant risk of being replaced -- most projects have different components that are developed at differen…
I really like this. Suppose we were to accept the suggestion that perhaps linearly decaying code is better built, and more robust, than exponentially decaying code. Would this give newbies a great new tool to answer their question of which framework or language to learn? Rails or Django? Django lasts longer. Angular or React? VueJs just a trend? You could answer all these questions with this kind of analysis. If some…
It looks like the exponential model isn't a good fit at all -- in all cases it undershoots the decay at the start of the graph and overshoots at the tail end. So while it might "look close" there is some systematic that your model doesn't account for. In particular, I don't agree that all code in a codebase has a constant risk of being replaced -- most projects have different components that are developed at differen…
Look at how consistently the lines of code grow for these projects. I doubt that is surprising but think about the implications. Linux is a pretty old open source project and still on balance the lines of code just grow. How many lines of code will it be in fifty years? Will we have to come up with new systems to manage the fact that individuals only really understand smaller and smaller pieces of it? Will it reach a…
I think one of the main reasons that something like Linux keeps on growing is that it needs to support more drivers as they come onto the market. So unless you want to remove support for older hardware, you're more or less going to grow endlessly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think one of the main reasons that something like Linux keeps on growing is that it needs to support more drivers as they come onto the market. So unless you want to remove support for older hardware, you're more or less going to grow endlessly.
Right, but nothing can grow endlessly. Yet these projects do grow relentlessly, almost never getting any smaller, for as long as we have kept track. It can't go on forever, so how can it end?
Or a new implementation (or OS) could come along, with compelling advances and no baggage. The old code doesn't so much collapse as become obsolete.
This is awesome. I ran it on pyramid for fun. http://imgur.com/a/KZ9KR
A catastrophe based model seems more appropriate. You see big refactoring taking place. Only in a big number sum those Poisson-like events turn into exponentials.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think one of the main reasons that something like Linux keeps on growing is that it needs to support more drivers as they come onto the market. So unless you want to remove support for older hardware, you're more or less going to grow endlessly.
Right, but nothing can grow endlessly. Yet these projects do grow relentlessly, almost never getting any smaller, for as long as we have kept track. It can't go on forever, so how can it end?