I can't remember whether it was on here or IRL I was having a rant about this recently, so if the former please forgive the repetition, but why is this? It wasn't long at all after people started building software systems that it was realised that one should design for maintainability, not just for the release-day functionality. People have been building houses much, much longer than they've been building software. Why don't we build houses like Ikea furniture, so that with a big enough Allen key (and perhaps some silicone sealant and a few other consumables) we can dismantle them, or even refactor them? How come to fix the spotlight in my kitchen ceiling that isn't getting power, I need to pull up glued-down lino and nailed-down floorboards in the bathroom above? How come if the same failure mode ever happened to the bathroom light, I'd have to destroy the ceiling to get at it, as there's only a tiny, completely inaccessible roof-space above it?

Peter