Code Inflation

Journal article about code inflation and how software grows over time whether or not a rational need for it exists.

Gives the history of the/bin/true command in Unix as an example... it was originally 0 bytes (always completed successfully because it contained nothing to execute) and has since grown to 22k bytes without any significant difference in functionality.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7057573/

Article's a few years old (my /bin/true is up to 27k now) but it's still an interesting read if you're bored.

Look interesting. This kind of books always helps people understand what had happened in the past which brings a lot of knowledge with just one week of reading or even jus a few hours.