The world’s software is experiencing instability, as multiple outages occur for various reasons. These outages indicate problems with how the industry maintains software.

While it may seem that not enough maintenance goes into software, the reality is quite the opposite. The increasing complexity and dependencies in codebases make it challenging for developers to navigate and maintain them.

As a result, they resort to shortcuts and hacks, which ultimately contribute to bloating the codebase. This software erosion becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and significantly impacts long-term efficiency and scalability.

Efforts to address the issue often involve applying temporary fixes or hiring more quality assurance professionals, which only serve as band-aids over a deeper problem. Despite the emphasis on concepts like ‘shift left’, the time and resources allocated to maintenance tasks indicate that the industry has yet to fully embrace this philosophy.

It’s crucial for developers to run static code analysis and functional tests as new code is written and to have multiple sources of insight into their software architecture. If these measures are still not effective, it may be necessary to reassess the software architecture and consider re-architecting if it no longer serves its purpose.

While this may entail short-term pains, it can ultimately lead to a better understanding of the implemented architecture and the ability to build new features as intended. However, it’s important to commit to ‘shift left’ quality assurance processes when re-architecting to ensure long-term success.

In conclusion, understanding and addressing the complexity and dependencies in software architecture are essential to mitigate the ongoing instability in the world of software. Failure to do so may result in a perpetuation of challenges and the recurring instability of software systems.