second-system effect

n. (sometimes, more euphoniously, second-system syndrome ) When one is
designing the successor to a relatively small, elegant, and successful
system, there is a tendency to become grandiose in one's success and design
an elephantine feature-laden monstrosity. The term was first used by Fred
Brooks in his classic The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
(Addison-Wesley, 1975; ISBN 0-201-00650-2). It described the jump from a set
of nice, simple operating systems on the IBM 70xx series to OS/360 on the
360 series. A similar effect can also happen in an evolving system; see
Brooks's Law , creeping elegance , creeping featurism. See also Multics ,
OS/2 , X , software bloat. This version of the jargon lexicon has been
described (with altogether too much truth for comfort) as an example of
second-system effect run amok on jargon-1....

