Cold-Blooded Software (2023)
4 months ago
- #project-management
- #cold-blooded-animals
- #software-development
- The author recalls a university lecture where a baby painted turtle, capable of surviving being frozen, was used to demonstrate cold-blooded animals' ability to adapt their metabolism to environmental temperatures.
- Cold-blooded animals, like the painted turtle, become active in warmth and slow down as temperatures drop, contrasting with warm-blooded animals that maintain a stable body temperature.
- The author draws a parallel between cold-blooded animals and software projects, distinguishing between 'warm-blooded' projects that require constant activity to survive and 'cold-blooded' projects that can be paused and resumed without issues.
- Cold-blooded software projects use stable, boring technology, avoid external dependencies, and can remain functional over long periods without maintenance, exemplified by the author's 12-year-old blog software written in Python 2.
- The author's blog software, relying on vendored dependencies and local operations, has required minimal updates over the years and is expected to remain functional for many more.