- **Epistemic status:** #seedlings Software rot is when entropy (disorder in the system) increases. Other folks call it technical debt with the implied notion they will pay it back someday, but they won't. The best way to avoid this is by not causing collateral damage just because there's a crisis of some sort. All it takes to start a decline is one broken window (badly designed piece of code or a poor management decision that the team must live with for the duration of the project). --- ## References - Thomas, David, and Andrew Hunt. _The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition: Journey to Mastery_. Second edition. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2019.