What happens when your content or feature set starts to exceed the capabilities of the environment in which it exists?

Some environments (operating systems, application environments, communications protocols…) are remarkably resilient, and can hold up under all kinds of unanticipated pressures and demands (think Ethernet — how many years has it been?).

Some environments are flexible (think Java, Bluetooth and Flash), but show signs of strain if hacked too far. At some point, your demands that they perform jobs for which they were never built overwhelms, and they crash and fall apart. Imagine that happening to the above file folder. Nasty, huh? Even worse when it’s your application running in the real world.

Some environments (I won’t name names) are rigidly insistent on your obedience, and demand that you follow their rules or else.

This comes up occasionally, when we try to demonstrate 3D capabilities on devices whose manufacturers never dreamed of 3D. (This also comes up when a remarkably gifted child is being taught by a narrow-minded teacher!)

The best environments, of course, are those whose builders created something open and non-controlling (as Ethernet is), rather than attempting to impose a standard. Those are the infrastructures that last and last.