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Features are not chunks of code

Before the industrial age, “features” were noteworthy aspects of a face or a geography: a patch of color, abundant wrinkles, a scar… The human brain is stunningly good at identifying and comparing such features–perhaps because that ability has been central to our nurture as children, our bonding into family units, and our survival as a species.

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Photo by Danie Franco on Unsplash

When we want to say what a face looks like, we describe its features. They are an entrée into experience with it.

At the dawn of the computer age, the advertising and publishing industries were already talking about how products–or aspects of them–could be “featured” in media. Highlighted characteristics were called “features”, and this metaphor transferred seamlessly into digital language. Software product managers now traffic in “features” and “feature sets.”

We use the term so comfortably that we sometimes forget what it has to teach us.

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The 8th Characteristic

Biologists will tell you that life has 7 characteristics: organization, metabolism, irritability, reproduction, homeostasis, adaptation, and growth.

I think this list is missing something. It’s foundational, indisputable, and familiar even to kindergartners. But perhaps only kindergartners would call it out; several generations of biologists seem not to notice it enough to add it to their short list. Pick up a biology textbook, and you are unlikely to find a single chapter devoted to it.

Are you ready?

The 8th characteristic of life: mortality.

All living things die.

We see without seeing… Photo credit: John O’Neil (Wikimedia Commons)

Think about the consequences for a few moments. Would any of the ecosystems that you see on nature documentaries be possible without death? Would human civilization, as we know it? Read Orson Scott Card’s short story, “Mortal Gods,” and ponder.

Community blindness

Why am I writing about this as a software guy?

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