software entropy
Software entropy
A work on
software engineering by
Ivar Jacobson et al. describes
software entropy as follows:
- The second law of thermodynamics, in principle, states that a closed system's disorder cannot be reduced, it can only remain unchanged or increased. A measure of this disorder is entropy. This law also seems plausible for software systems; as a system is modified, its disorder, or entropy, always increases. This is known as software entropy.
- Within software development, there are similar theories; see Lehman (1985), who suggested a number of laws, of which two were, basically, as follows:
- A computer program that is used will be modified
- When a program is modified, its complexity will increase, provided that one does not actively work against this.