Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No known bugs This is the part that I doubt will ever be achieved by any system or structure of moderate complexity or above. Everything that exists in the real world has problems with it. If it's a building or a machine, then it's done once it's built unless there are major safety issues. The cost of fixing non-critical issues in a physical product is too high to justify. The problem with software is that the marg…
> If it's a building or a machine, then it's done once it's built… Modern construction requires a significant amount of maintenance. The Romans on the other hand, they knew how to build a building!
I was raised with the rule of thumb that you should budget 1% of the purchase price of a house for maintenance; while that's roughly true for my century-old villa that I purchased at the turn of the century, I suspect that the hockey-stick of residential housing has made it a bit inaccurate.
And something that I didn't really understand until an architect cousin explained to me is that modern commercial buildings mostly have a designed lifespan, typically 50-100 years.