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Ken Thompson on Fragile Code

Some people write fragile code and some people write very structurally sound code, and this is a condition of people. I think in almost any language you can write fragile code. My definition of fragile code is, suppose you want to add a feature–good code, there’s one place where you add that feature and it fits; fragile code, you’ve got to touch ten places.

– Ken Thompson, Coders at Work, p. 467