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From: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Were cron and at done at the same time? Or one before
 the other?
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    > From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o"

    > Having a clean architecture is useful in so far as it makes reduces
    > maintenance overhead and improves reliability.

I would put it differently, hence my aphorism that: "the sign of great
architecture is not how well it does the things it was designed to do, but how
well it does things you never imagined it would be used for".

I suppose you could say that reducing maintenance and improving reliability
are examples of the natural consequences of that, but to me those are limited
special cases of the more general statement. My sense is that systems decline
over time because of what I call 'system cancer': as they are modified to do
more and more (new) things, the changes are not usually very cleanly
integrated, and eventually one winds up with a big pile. (Examples of this
abound; I'm sure we can all think of several.)

	Noel