"It's like maintaining a skyscraper built out of Tinker Toys."
Actually, it's like maintaining a skyscraper built from steel, concrete and glass integrated with complex HVAC, plumbing, electrical and elevator systems.
Actually, it's like maintaining a skyscraper built from steel, concrete and glass integrated with complex HVAC, plumbing, electrical and elevator systems.
But this is only a few years after the web was invented, and the average website is still sufficiently ad hoc that the Tinker Toy level is a lot more visible.
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[1] Break any human-designed system down far enough and you'll often arrive at something as simple as a Tinker Toy. Although, of course, Tinker Toys are not that simple, so this fact may not help as much as you'd think. And this is not true of all systems: In metallurgy, the "simple" parts are atoms, quantum mechanics is not like Tinker Toys, and even if it was nobody has experience with a Tinker Toy set containing 10^28 pieces.
Adding, "Designed by a committee. Of MC Escher fans."
It never works!