Searching for a metaphor

Just like life, software evolves; over time it adapts to catch new trends, fit new niches and exploit new technologies. For various reasons, some software does a better job of adapting to its new environment than others. Unfortunately, the software that generally evolves with the most warts and vestigial appendages is the software that gets used the most, the enterprise platform and framework software. We've all seen these software beasts - bloated and blubberous chimera of patchwork parts.


This post came about because I was reading Bob Congdon's post on the integration of SOA into the world of enterprise Java and the image of that bloated beast sprouting a new set of limbs came to mind. I might have lived with that metaphor in my head if I then hadn't then seen this poetic piece of technical writing that casts things in a different light. Its image of a giant turd really does seem to nail it beautifully.

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