Finished software

This piece by Jose M. Gilgado got linked to on several blogs and it got me thinking.

Gilgado:

When we buy a physical product, we accept that it won’t change in its lifetime. We’ll use it until it wears off, and we replace it. We can rely on that product not evolving; the gas pedal in my car will always be in the same place.

I’d argue that the great thing about software is precisely that it’s never finished, that it can be changed for the better without throwing it out and buying a new one.

But I see where this is coming from – software changing for the worse, from being tired of constant feature creep and ever more bloated software we often have no choice but to use.

To borrow Gilgado’s analogy: stop moving the gas pedal around.