Chapter 14: “Conclusions” revisits and amplifies several key points of the book dealing with scale, complexity, adaptability and productivity. Development and run time RPD practices are recommended for each of the code, system and data dimensions covered by the book. RPD considerations resulting from various architecture challenges are reviewed including deeply layered stacks, large numbers of components, state spill, fault tolerance and security. Methods of adapting to change are recommended including identifying patterns that tolerate predictable change, responding to shifting bottlenecks, and leveraging synergistic combinations of functionality.

RP impact on productivity is explored including decisions about return on optimization investment and tradeoffs between time to market and sustainable advantage driven by both short term and long term software quality and efficiency. Looking forward the chapter concludes by acknowledging trends towards automated development and real time adaptation, and co-design across hardware and software system elements. The separation of static and dynamic behaviors across control and data planes is highlighted while suggesting the selective embedding of control plane information in data streams to track what the system is becoming in addition to its current state of being.