[georgeecollins]

Look at how consistently the lines of code grow for these projects. I doubt that is surprising but think about the implications. Linux is a pretty old open source project and still on balance the lines of code just grow.

How many lines of code will it be in fifty years? Will we have to come up with new systems to manage the fact that individuals only really understand smaller and smaller pieces of it? Will it reach a mass where like a black hole it collapses from some uncomprehensible failure?

There have never been things like this that just grow in complexity forever.

[buzzybee]

There's a pretty definite threshold, perhaps somewhere in the early 10,000's of lines(depending on the language and how densely you wrote it), where the system becomes bigger than your headspace, and at that point, I think, the real challenge for code reduction begins. And there are some very big wins possible by consistently reducing the problem into "language for solving the problem plus trivial code in that language" - VPRI's STEPS articles [0] demonstrate as much.

But it's perceptually less work to accrete a few hundred new lines to the system than to engineer a 10x reduction that introduces an entirely new architecture layer, so nobody does, or only a few research-driven projects. Programmers are, after all, lazy and deadline-driven. And while proprietary software tends to accrete due to corporate dynamics creating an environment of continuous growth, open-source projects are often built on accretion as an assumed benefit.

My own software goal, having viewed this landscape, is to be stubborn enough for long enough to score some of the 10x wins and share those so that "more with less" becomes a little more viable. I do think that all codebases go obsolete eventually, but the overall ecosystem doesn't have to depend on them so long there's data and protocol compatibility.

[0] http://vpri.org/html/writings.php

[jtigger]

> There have never been things like this that just grow in complexity forever.

The evolution of the species? Homo sapiens seem rather complex.

Perhaps what we'll see is that over time, large portions of what have been long list of pedantic instructions become decision models that get tweaked over time. Imagine when referring to the size of a software system using two numbers: MLOCs and MDPs (Matured Decision Points). Not unlike industrial revolution assembly lines compared to the automated factories of today — modern factory workers are some degrees removed from the step-by-step movements.

[JoachimSchipper]

Linux already relies on specialized tools - like Cocinelle=spatch - to migrate very large codebases at once. Linux has also grown from a hobbyist project into a fairly complex (informal!) organization of highly-skilled full-time developers, just to keep development manageable.

[rmchugh]

I think one of the main reasons that something like Linux keeps on growing is that it needs to support more drivers as they come onto the market. So unless you want to remove support for older hardware, you're more or less going to grow endlessly.

[georgeecollins]

Right, but nothing can grow endlessly. Yet these projects do grow relentlessly, almost never getting any smaller, for as long as we have kept track. It can't go on forever, so how can it end?

[lepton]

The industry could converge on standards which allow certain classes of "repeated but different" code (drivers?) to collapse. By collapse, I mean they could share a generic version of code, thus reducing the overall line count.

Or a new implementation (or OS) could come along, with compelling advances and no baggage. The old code doesn't so much collapse as become obsolete.

[csallen]

Why can't it go on forever? ("Forever" meaning as long as computers and humans exist.) I don't see any particular reason why.