on March 2, 2022
Software is omnipresent in our lives: apps, banking software, human resources management, salaries, hospital management, ticket reservations, cars, but also territory surveillance tools, servers, machine tools, missile launchers and many others. So much software that needs to evolve to take account of the fact that rules, customs and society are changing. Who wants to be forced to book a train ticket on a good old Minitel? Nobody would. Who would want to be forced to undergo surgery using medical equipment from the 1970s? No one would. Similarly, software needs to be constantly adapted and improved to take account of the constant changes in our lives and societies. Imagine a world where, every 10 years, the gauge of train rails, the strength of rail beams, the format and voltage of electrical sockets changed. Well, that world is the world of software development. Under these conditions, you might imagine that it would be a good idea to just throw out the old software and develop new ones. But this is proving complicated for a number of reasons.
Article for The Conversation by Stéphane Ducasse, Anne Etien
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