[tarmstrong]

> Software is significantly different from buildings in that it can be substantially upgraded or redesigned after going into production.

I used to think this was true, but after talking to architecture/civil engineering friends a lot about this, I've learned that this is less true than I believed. There are often changing requirements for buildings due to different use cases, changing regulations or building codes, or a change in energy prices (or the social cost of using a lot of energy). Sometimes new technologies are used without a lot of experience with them, leading to high operating expenses for the lifetime of the building.

I asked my friend about your comment and he gave me a few interesting examples: 1) "flying form construction" that leads to exposed concrete slabs on buildings that bleed heat in the winter. This was really cheap to build but turned out to be really awful for energy efficiency (once we started caring). 2) a building in the 50s-60s that was built with automatic window blinds. The maintenance cost of fixing the blinds when they inevitably broke led to them not getting fixed, and the building becoming basically useless.

If you're interested in reading more about this, Stewart Brand's "How Buildings Learn" is a really good read for laypeople. I was really surprised by how much of the book could be applied to software engineering.

(This is not a field I'm familiar with so any errors are mine, not my friend's.)