"...it's not the software that rots but instead the users and/or organization that decays."
Orgs decay, sure.
But I believe the OC's point was that orgs become more brittle over time as they specialize. Conway's Law would suggest that software architecture mirrors org structure, so it too would become more brittle.
Applicable cliches: "victim of one's own success", "the complexity catastrophe".
Going the full meta here, I'm okay with the death-rebirth cycle for orgs. Yes, a lot of knowledge (experience) is lost. But forgetfulness is also crucial for learning, adaptation.
It was nice up to this: "But forgetfulness is also crucial for learning, adaptation."
In IT, it's the opposite: history repeats itself endlessly with same flaws, same missed opportunities, and same techniques recreated due to often-willful ignorance of the past. One of the things I do here is get old or even current work to people it might benefit. The number of times the old stuff applies to current problems, but was never handed down to those people by predecessors, shows the problem we need to work on is maintaining, packaging, and delivering prior wisdom. Interestingly, the other engineering disciplines already do that a lot better with IT remaining pretty stubborn. To put loss into perspective, it took some groups 50+ years to reinvent benefits of Burroughs B5000 and ALGOL. Just one example among many.
By "forgetfulness", I also mean the stubborn clinging to the old ways, because reasons. The necessary dying of the old guard, a la Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
But I also mean that each new cohort apparently needs to rediscover the deep truths (first principles) for themselves, to earn the wisdom vs blindly accepting received knowledge. I have no idea why this seems to be the case.
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could
hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be
twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned
in seven years.
-- Mark Twain (disputed)
Perhaps forgetfulness is the wrong word. I'd don't yet have another. Some trite phrase for the culling of the herd, gouging out the dryrot, burning off the grasslands, aggressive RIFFing of the tentured... That also conveys that we must give people the room and opportunity to learn things for themselves.
Maybe what I'm advocating is the Socratic Method. Versus telling people "just because".
"By "forgetfulness", I also mean the stubborn clinging to the old ways, because reasons. The necessary dying of the old guard, a la Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions."
Well, that's true. I think we might need to distinguish between what ideas are lost or are not what a new group is clinging to. Often comes with new people, young or old, coming into an organization. Maybe also distinguish between "current thoughts on what's best method" vs "known methods along with their benefits and problems."
"Maybe what I'm advocating is the Socratic Method. Versus telling people "just because"."
Well, there's how we publish the knowledge and how they learn it. I'm for traditional reporting with empirical focus, less silos, easier search, and easier distribution. Far as learning, Socratic Method is one among many methods that might have potential. It's too big a topic for me outside brief work I did on using various parts of brain simultaneously to increase recall, incremental problem solving of increasing complexity, matching training to realistic scenarios, and side-projects that are open-ended to match fun & curiosity. Don't think I did anything else in research on the topic. Well, a M.C. test generator and some expert system prototypes but they were crap honestly. :)
Orgs decay, sure.
But I believe the OC's point was that orgs become more brittle over time as they specialize. Conway's Law would suggest that software architecture mirrors org structure, so it too would become more brittle.
Applicable cliches: "victim of one's own success", "the complexity catastrophe".
Going the full meta here, I'm okay with the death-rebirth cycle for orgs. Yes, a lot of knowledge (experience) is lost. But forgetfulness is also crucial for learning, adaptation.