The result of neglecting to contain it can be a BIG BALL OF MUD . Brand noted that Function melts form , and low road buildings are more amenable to such change. Similarly, with software, you may be reluctant to desecrate another programmer's cathedral. Expedient changes to a low road system that exhibits no discernable architectural pretensions to begin with are easier to rationalize. Piecemeal Growth is based on the idea of repair .
Piecemeal growth is based on the healthier and more realistic view that mistakes are inevitable.
Unless money is available for repairing these mistakes, every building, once built, is condemned to be, to some extent unworkable. In the software world, we deploy our most skilled, experienced people early in the lifecycle. Later on, maintenance is relegated to junior staff, and resources can be scarce. The so-called maintenance phase is the part of the lifecycle in which the price of the fiction of master planning is really paid. It is maintenance programmers who are called upon to bear the burden of coping with the ever widening divergence between fixed designs and a continuously changing world.