Comment by kragen

Software is unusual in that it's never finished. This makes ease of modification a critical quality of software in a way that it isn't for Formula 1 race car engines or most buildings.

Ease of modification was one of the top priorities in the design of the Model T Ford, because cars break down and must be repaired, and a car that is difficult or impossible to repair will cost its owner large sums of money. Software doesn't break down (though online services do) but for other reasons modification is a high priority.

Perhaps short-lived buildings don't need to be easy to modify, especially if the architects have a very good understanding of the needs of the users over their lifetimes. Often that is not the case, though, and Christopher Alexander was famous in large part because much of his career was devoted to figuring out how to enable inhabitants of buildings to modify them more easily, so that their needs would eventually be met even if the architects guessed wrong decades in the past. Centuries-old stone farmhouses exist, too, and ease of modification is crucial for them; if they cannot be modified they cease to function in only a century or two at most.

Whatever the goal of your software, it is crucial for the people who are modifying it over time to achieve that goal to be able to understand it.