2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
|
|
|
second-system effect
|
|
|
|
|
|
2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
|
|
|
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....
|
|
|
|
|
|
