[digi_owl]

The way I see it is that any project that continues for long enough takes on evolutionary properties.

You may have an initial design that fits perfectly to the task at hand at that particular time and place. But either you insist on starting over from scratch every time the task changes to even a minor degree, or you modify (evolve) an existing design to fit the changed circumstances.

[vezzy-fnord]

Only if your model has weak cohesion. Furthermore, some features are not just things you can wait to evolve yourself into. You do not evolve yourself a better event and I/O multiplexing model, you design it. Otherwise, evolution leaves too many vestiges.

[digi_owl]

Starting to suspect that you and Cantrill are talking at a more fine grained layer than i am with regards to design vs evolution.