But code is written in an entirely pragmatic environment. That means its value changes with time. But we don't treat novels as pragmatically. If all its refe

But code is written in an entirely pragmatic environment. That means its value changes with time. But we don't treat novels as pragmatically. If all its references are out of date, we simply excuse that problem by saying the book exists in history. Also, we don't have people running around re-writing novels. I don't doubt for a moment that Kafka's works could be improved if it was "open-sourced" and edited collectively. And fiction is "code" for humans. The basic design of a human doesn't change nearly at all compared to computers. So instead of optimizing novels for humans with new features or faster processing, we hang on to some of them because particular "code" or life lessons need to be learned by a new generation.