A Big Ball of Mud
Comments on “A Big Ball of Mud”
Claim-checked. Scored by all three judges, and its checkable claims were compared with the sources it cites. How far stories are checked
Brian Foote and Joseph Yoder's 1997 PLoP paper, hosted at laputan.org, argues that the most common software architecture is the "Big Ball of Mud," and that time, cost, experience, and changing requirements push even careful teams toward it. They treat it as a pattern to understand, not only an antipattern, and pair it with remedies: throwaway code, piecemeal growth, shearing layers, sweeping it under the rug, and reconstruction. The excerpt is partial, and several supporting figures and anecdotes in the full text have no cited source.
Why it ranked
No. 11 of 137 with a score of 0.69. The panel rated it highest on audience breadth (0.79) and reader interest (0.76), lowest on substantiated (0.52). The judges disagreed most on new information (spread 0.90), so the story is marked contested. Placed No. 11, No. 13 by score alone: the placement terms moved other stories past it.
- AI judgeJudge 2claude-haiku-5-5
- A classic, widely-cited essay on software architecture anti-patterns; highly relevant to builders and a landmark in discourse, but it is old and not new information, with discursive rather than empirical support.}
- AI judgeJudge 3gpt-5.6-luna
- A foundational, broadly applicable analysis of software architecture decay, evolutionary development, refactoring, and organizational forces. It is highly useful to builders, though largely conceptual and historically dated rather than presenting new empirical results.
Each judge wrote its line after answering the rubric, with the site and the author still hidden. Every answer behind this is in the table under Score.
Score
0.69total under rubric v2.3Contestedjudges differ by 0.90 on new information
- Significance0.71
- Reader interest0.76
- Audience breadth0.79
- Practical relevance0.73
- Substantiated0.52
- Technical depth0.56
- New information0.67
- Counts against: Promotional0.03
- Counts against: Overclaim0.22
Each judge’s answer per question (0–1), their mean and spread, and what the question adds to the score (weight × mean).
| Question | Judge 1 | Judge 2 | Judge 3 | Mean | Spread | Weight | Contribution (weight times mean) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SignificanceHow much does this change what people in tech know or can do? | 0.72 | 0.60 | 0.82 | 0.71 | 0.22 | +0.24 | +0.171 |
| Reader interestWould a well-informed senior engineer or tech founder want to read this today, and likely pass it on? | 0.55 | 0.80 | 0.92 | 0.76 | 0.37 | +0.26 | +0.197 |
| Audience breadthHow many people who build technology does it concern? | 0.90 | 0.70 | 0.78 | 0.79 | 0.20 | +0.13 | +0.103 |
| Practical relevanceHow useful is it to someone who builds software or tech products? | 0.68 | 0.70 | 0.82 | 0.73 | 0.14 | +0.22 | +0.161 |
| SubstantiatedHow well is it backed? Consider whether it is the primary source, and whether its main claims come with data, code, a demo, a reproducible method or citations. | 0.38 | 0.40 | 0.78 | 0.52 | 0.40 | +0.05 | +0.026 |
| Technical depthHow technically substantive is it? | 0.58 | 0.40 | 0.68 | 0.56 | 0.28 | +0.05 | +0.028 |
| New informationDoes it contain information absent from the stories covered in the last 7 days (list provided)? | 0.92 | 0.10 | 1.00 | 0.67 | 0.90 , above the contested threshold | +0.05 | +0.034 |
| PromotionalIs it mainly marketing with little substance (a press release, ad or sponsored post with no real information)? A launch post that carries real news is not promotional. | 0.05 | 0.02 | 0.01 | 0.03 | 0.04 | −0.19 | −0.005 |
| OverclaimDo the headline or conclusions claim more than the body supports? | 0.35 | 0.20 | 0.12 | 0.22 | 0.23 | −0.11 | −0.025 |
| Sum of contributions | +0.690 | ||||||
| Claim-check penalty | 0.000 | ||||||
| Total, as published | 0.690 | ||||||
Spread is the highest minus the lowest judge answer. marks a spread above 0.40: the judges disagree, and the story is marked contested.
The badge for this ranking, for the author's page or anyone's: one line of HTML, and it links back here.
<a href="https://rubric.hrih.si/editions/2026-11-04/11/"><img src="https://rubric.hrih.si/badge/2026-11-04/11.svg" alt="Ranked #11 on Rubric, 4 Nov 2026" width="238" height="28"></a>Claim check
Claim check: 6 no source given · 2 couldn’t check. Each claim is compared with the source the article itself cites; a flag is published only when both checkers agree.
No source givenNumber
Capers Jones reported that the chance a significant change contains a new error (a 'Bad Fix Injection') was about 7% in the United States.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “Capers Jones [Jones 1999] reported that the chance that a significant change might contain a new error--a phenomenon he ominously referred to as a Bad Fix Injection-- was about 7%…”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenNumber
Microsoft mandates a daily build of each product at the end of each working day, while Nortel requires a working build at the end of each week.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “Microsoft mandates that a DAILY BUILD of each product be performed at the end of each working day. Nortel adheres to the slightly less demanding requirement that a working build…”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenDate
Atlanta's Fulton County Stadium was built in 1966 and demolished in August 1997, after only thirty-one years.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium was built in 1966 to serve as the home of baseball’s Atlanta Braves, and football’s Atlanta Falcons. In August of 1997, the stadium was demolished”
The source says No source to compare with.
Couldn’t checkDate
The Mir space station's modules were launched between 1986 (Core) and 1996 (Priroda), with Kvant and Kvant-2 in 1987 and 1989, Kristall in 1990, and Spektr and Docking modules in 1995.
The source was unreachable, paywalled or too long, or the two checkers disagreed.
The article says “The Core module was launched in 1986, and the Kvant ("Quantum") and Kvant-2 modules joined the complex in 1987 and 1989”
The source says No passage could be compared.
Source cited by the article: maximov.com/Mir
No source givenCausal conclusion
Extreme Programming had its genesis in the Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation project (C3), which began after a foundering project discarded a year and a half's worth of work.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “Extreme Programming [Beck 2000] had its genesis in the Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation project (C3). It began with a cry for help from a foundering project, and a decision to discard…”
The source says No source to compare with.
Couldn’t checkFirst, only or fastest
The term 'Big Ball of Mud' was first suggested by Brian Marick at a University of Illinois Software Architecture Group meeting, and appears to have arisen in the 1970s as a characterization of Lisp.
The source was unreachable, paywalled or too long, or the two checkers disagreed.
The article says “The term itself, in turn, appears to have arisen during the '70s as a characterization of Lisp”
The source says No passage could be compared.
Source cited by the article: bath.ac.uk/~masjap/TYL/history.html
No source givenNumber
Brand distilled Duffy's layers with Structure lasting 30 to 300 years, Skin around 20 years, Services 7 to 15 years, and commercial Space Plans turning over about every 3 years.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “Structure may last from 30 to 300 years. Skin lasts for around 20 years, as it responds to the elements, and to the whims of fashion. Services succumb to wear…”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenNumber
The PLoP online registration script would perform too badly to be usable if attendees exceeded around one hundred.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “Were the number of attendees to exceed more than around one hundred, this script would start to perform so badly as to be unusable”
The source says No source to compare with.
Also covered by
No other coverage was clustered with this story.
Elsewhere
Elsewhere: HN 2 pts, not on front page
Recorded for context only, checked 4 Nov 2026, 05:47 UTC. It played no part in the ranking.