The second-system effect or second-system syndrome is the tendency of small,
elegant, and successful systems to be succeeded by
over-engineered,
bloated systems, due to inflated expectations and overconfidence.
The phrase was first used by
Fred Brooks
Frederick Phillips Brooks Jr. (April 19, 1931 – November 17, 2022) was an American computer architect, software engineer, and computer scientist, best known for managing the development of IBM's System/360 family of computers and the O ...
in his book ''
The Mythical Man-Month
''The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering'' is a book on software engineering and project management by Fred Brooks first published in 1975, with subsequent editions in 1982 and 1995. Its central theme is that adding manpower to a ...
'', first published in 1975. It described the jump from a set of simple operating systems on the
IBM 700/7000 series
The IBM 700/7000 series is a series of large-scale (mainframe) computer systems that were made by IBM through the 1950s and early 1960s. The series includes several different, incompatible processor architectures. The 700s use vacuum-tube lo ...
to
OS/360
OS/360, officially known as IBM System/360 Operating System, is a discontinued batch processing operating system developed by IBM for their then-new System/360 mainframe computer, announced in 1964; it was influenced by the earlier IBSYS/IBJOB ...
on the 360 series, which happened in 1964.
See also
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Anti-pattern
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Feature creep
Feature creep is the excessive ongoing expansion or addition of new features in a product, especially in computer software, video games and consumer and business electronics. These extra features go beyond the basic function of the product an ...
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Inner-platform effect
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Osborne effect
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Sophomore slump
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Unix philosophy
The Unix philosophy, originated by Ken Thompson, is a set of cultural norms and philosophical approaches to minimalist, modular software development. It is based on the experience of leading developers of the Unix operating system. Early Uni ...
References
External links
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Anti-patterns
Software quality
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