"a hack, on top of a hack, on top of another hack, and so on" is evolution.
My HN username may be a case in point, drawing from a selection of twice five[0] digits due to legacy code of Hox genes: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1363084/
[0]
"This new art is called the algorismus, in which /
out of these twice five figures /
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1, /
of the Indians we derive such benefit"
You might see the Homer Simpson Car[0] and call it evolution too. But what I see is a mess, described as a sequence of hacks and bad decisions, just like HTML (and web stuff) today.
[0] https://www.wired.com/2014/07/homer-simpson-car/