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Software Engineering

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    Analogous to the hardware problem: "reliability is inversely proportional to the (of the order of xx?) number of components"/ "a mechanical device is just as bad as the number of moving parts it has". Commented Dec 5, 2011 at 10:57
  • I've seen this so many times I've started calling it the "Winchester Mystery House Syndrome" (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_house ). Some code bases I've seen needed a good 'exorcism'. Commented Dec 5, 2011 at 14:48
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    "the less of it you have the better" - logical extrapolation is to have NO code and thus solve ALL your maintenance issues. Seriously, though, your nutshell summary is an argument for keeping code as DRY as possible; and for refactoring as part of the development and maintenance cycles. Commented Dec 5, 2011 at 17:12
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    That's exactly why domain specific languages should always be used. A typical DSL implementation alongside with the code written in it is in order of magnitude smaller than an equivalent ad hoc code in any of the so called "general purpose" languages. Commented Dec 6, 2011 at 8:36
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    @ChrisWalton: And don't solve problems you don't need to solve, expend too much effort/time on future proofing, etc. Commented Dec 6, 2011 at 19:48