Nadia Eghbal’s Talk for the Long Now Foundation

We have this myth that software is zero marginal cost, ignoring the complex human interdependencies that are required to maintain it.

I found this talk incredibly insightful. I need to get her book. She’s put a lot of thinking and research into the aspects of software that people often ignore: namely, every aspect of software that’s not building it. We always talk about creating software but never maintaining it:

“Write code and forget about it” simply isn't a realistic vision of what's required to make and move these systems. Software is brittle, unreliable, subject to breakage at all times, and an endless exercise in failing over and over again.