Building software to last forever
Technical debt - Wikipedia
In software development, technical debt (also known as design debt[1] or code debt) is the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy (limited) solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer.[2]
Analogous with monetary debt,[3] if technical debt is not repaid, it can accumulate "interest", making it harder to implement changes. Unaddressed technical debt increases software entropy and cost of further rework.
Common causes of technical debt include:
Ongoing development, long series of project enhancements over time renders old solutions sub-optimal.
When I think about Adobe's reliance on entrenched menu panels and new menus with new/inconsistent interfaces I think of this. They've lasted so long that new features are all stapled on as menus instead of integrated throughout the whole system. Some ideas require a rethink of the whole interface, something Adobe can't afford because they're moving too much and don't have the resources to dedicate to soemthing of that scale?
Parallel development on multiple branches accrues technical debt because of the work required to merge the changes into a single source base. The more changes done in isolation, the more debt.
Similarly, this reminds me of the Gmail redesign's "blue-gate" where designers on Twitter pointed out how many different tones of Blue were in different aspects of the redesign. It seemed apparent that each component of the interface had it's own dedicated team, and the inconsistencies in appearance/interface design came from non-thorough communication between the teams.