Hacker News Reader

I don't like the theory that a piece of software can't be complete. Not all software can be complete, but some simple tools (which most software should be made of) can and should be able to be finished forever, or at least asymptotically approach completeness to a degree that the distance becomes irrelevant.

View on HN

A perfect, fully complete piece of software will still need adaptations: even if feature requirements never change, the underlying platform surely will.

Even a complete, self-contained system—one which never sees any changes at any level from software to hardware—will still require periodic hardware maintenance.

Even the simplest, most -seemingly- feature-complete software can and will need fixes. The best example comes from the Big Iron world, where a program which does nothing was needed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEFBR14

Reply on news.ycombinator.com