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....
