Code Structure Evolution
“This paper develops the concept of Code Structure Evolution (CSE) to analyze this phenomenon. CSE refers to the transformation of structural relations over time and the associated risk of what I call epistemic drift.”
— Code Structure Evolution (2026), abstract
Why it matters
Code Structure Evolution is the organising concept of the paper of the same name: it gathers structural transformation, epistemic drift, the point of no return, and the reconstruction cost into a single framework for analyzing the epistemic fragility of evolving technical artifacts. The other CSE concepts are components of this frame.
Notes
The framework operates on three layers, each making a distinct contribution to the AF programme:
- Philosophical — a concise characterisation of software’s epistemic fragility as a general phenomenon of evolving technical artifacts.
- Methodological — operational proxies for diagnosing structural manifestations of epistemic drift (Structural Integrity, Invariant Preservation, Traceability Continuity), tested in a seven-edit probe of AI-assisted legacy code modification.
- Integrative — CSE itself, serving as an organising concept for analyzing structural transformation in evolving software, and as the diachronic counterpart to the synchronic analysis of Architectures of Error.
The paper’s central thesis—that the preservation of functionality and the preservation of epistemic justification are dissociable—is what makes CSE more than a relabelling of “code decay” or “technical debt”. It locates the loss in the epistemic register, not the maintainability one.