The Red Queen's Race requires awareness

Does your software development project use mainstream technology? (Let's assume that you care about your technology.) Some project managers want to stay in the mainstream, others want to stay ahead of the crowd, and some want leading edge tech.

Starting a project at a specific position in technology is easy. Keeping that position, on the other hand, is not so easy.

Over time, languages and compilers and libraries change. There are new versions with enhanced features and bug fixes.


Source code, once written, is a "stake in the ground". It is fixed in place, tied to a language, possibly a compiler, and probably several libraries. Keeping up with those changes requires effort. Just how much effort will vary from language to language. The C++ language has been fairly stable over its thirty-year life; Visual Basic changed dramatically in the 1990s.

Thus we have a variant of the Red Queen's Race, in which one must run just to stay in place. (In the proper race, described in "Alice Through the Looking Glass", one must run as fast as one can. I've reduced the mandate for this discussion.) A software development project must, over time, devote some effort towards "running in place", that is, keeping up with the toolset.

This effort may be small (installing a new version of the compiler) or large (a new compiler and changes to a majority of the source modules). Sometimes the effort is very large: converting a project from Perl to Python is a major effort.

Failing to move to the current tools means that you slowly drift back, and possibly fall out of your desired position. A project that starts in the leading edge drifts to the mainstream, and a project in the mainstream becomes a laggard.

The Red Queen's Race for software requires not just changes to technology (updates to compilers and such) but also an awareness of technology. In the day-to-day activities of a software project, it is easy to focus inwards, looking at new requirements and defect reports. Maintaining one's position within tech requires looking outward, at updates and new technologies and techniques. You must be aware of updates to your toolset. You must be aware of new tools for testing and collaboration. You must be aware of other groups and their technologies.

When running in a herd, it's good to look at the herd, at least once in a while.