Degradability

The article introduces the concept of 'degradability', a software quality metric measuring how much re-entry cost idle code accumulates over time due to external changes. It contrasts the 1996 Space Jam website (low degradability, worked after 25 years) with modern Node.js projects (high degradability, break quickly). Three drivers are identified: external dependency count (21% of top npm packages deprecated), runtime environment coupling (specific Node versions expire), and external service coupling (network calls in build scripts). A rough measurement method is proposed by scoring these three factors. The metric excludes human factors like team knowledge loss. The ideal low-degradability project, like the Space Jam site, has no packages, no build step, and no CI.