I like your post, if for no other reason than the fact that you are one of the few people who throws around the term "evolution" and actually understand what biologists mean.

Well, I do actually have a background in both evolutionary theory as well as the philosphy of biology.

That said, I agree that few small pieces of software "evolve" in any meaningful way. However large ones often do, for exactly the reasons that you describe near the end. As an example, read this description by Linus Torvalds of what Linux development looks like.

Yes, and I guess what I am suggesting is that evolution is something that may be happening later in the life cycle of software, but it doesn't give us useful insights into the design and early development stages.

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