Continuous obsolescence or perpetual revolution is a phenomenon where industry trends, or other items that do not immediately correspond to technical needs, mandate a continual readaptation of a system. Such work does not increase the usefulness of the system, but is required for the system to continue fulfilling its functions.
[AntiPatterns:
refactoring software, architectures, and projects in crisis. Brown, William J. 1998, Wiley. P 69]
Unintentional reasons
Continuous obsolescence may be unintentional. One type of largely unintentional case of continuous obsolescence occurs when the rising demand for graphics- and experience-intensive
video game
A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
s collides with a long development time for a new title. While a game may promise to be acceptable or even revolutionary if released on schedule, a delay exposes it to the risk of being unable to compete with better games released during the delay (e.g. ''
Daikatana
''Daikatana'' is a first-person shooter game developed by Ion Storm. It was published by Eidos Interactive for Windows and Kemco for Nintendo 64. Players control a swordsmaster who travels through various time periods using the eponymous Daikat ...
''), or of being continually rewritten to take advantage of better technologies as they become available (e.g. ''
Duke Nukem Forever''). This last behavior is an example of a software development
anti-pattern
An anti-pattern in software engineering, project management, and business processes is a common response to a recurring problem that is usually ineffective and risks being highly counterproductive. The term, coined in 1995 by computer programmer An ...
.
Intentional reasons
Continuous obsolescence may also be intentional, for example when an application tries to include compatibility for the output of another widely used application. In this case, the software house responsible for the latter may vary its output format repeatedly, forcing the developer of the former to continuously expend resources to keep its compatibility up-to-date, rather than using those resources to expand features or otherwise make the product more competitive. Many accuse
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
of doing exactly this with the file formats used by its
Office
An office is a space where the employees of an organization perform Business administration, administrative Work (human activity), work in order to support and realize the various goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a po ...
application suite.
See also
*
Planned obsolescence
In economics and industrial design, planned obsolescence (also called built-in obsolescence or premature obsolescence) is the concept of policies planning or designing a good (economics), product with an artificially limited Product lifetime, u ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Continuous Obsolescence
Anti-patterns
Obsolescence