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This article investigates the evolution in time of the number of lines of the Java source code of the Java Development Kit, (JDK). We show that the successive main versions of the JDK source files developed characteristic evolutionary patterns during the last fifteen years, such as the growth of the cumulated lines of code according to a sigmoïd shape, also know as S-curve or logistic function, and a parabolic scaling of of the rank-size distributions of the source files.

On the basis of previous results in the domain of Constructal theory, a Physics theory of maximization of flow access in time, developed since 1996 by Adrian Bejan, Prof. at the Duke University, and in order to explain the emergence of these patterns, we proposed recently to consider the constructal-tree invasion of a territory combined with the constructal rank-size distribution of a growing population as the mechanism potentially generating a wide variety of population distributions. In the case of the JDK, the functional scope addressed by the successive versions of the platform, is assimilated to a functional space to invade, continuously increased in time. The development of the JDK’s functional packages hierarchy is interpreted as the tree-shaped structure followed by the invasive flow.