JargonFile/entries/critical mass.txt

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2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
critical mass
2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
n. In physics, the minimum amount of fissionable material required to
sustain a chain reaction. Of a software product, describes a condition of
the software such that fixing one bug introduces one plus epsilon bugs.
(This malady has many causes: creeping featurism , ports to too many
disparate environments, poor initial design, etc.) When software achieves
critical mass, it can never be fixed; it can only be discarded and
rewritten.