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From: dalamb@avi.umiacs.umd.edu (David Lamb)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Second System Effect
Summary: Is creeping featurism really the same thing as s.s.e?
Message-ID: <30619@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 23 Feb 91 14:40:13 GMT
References: <30512@mimsy.umd.edu> <448@data.UUCP>
Sender: news@mimsy.umd.edu
Reply-To: dalamb@umiacs.umd.edu (David Lamb)
Organization: UMIACS, Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
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Earlier, I wrote:
>In "The Mythical Man-Month", Fred Brooks (1975) described the "second system
>effect"
>...
>Do y'all believe it's still a problem these days?

In an effort to be brief, I think I stated my question unclearly.
Lots of people responded by saying "yes, most programs on the market
grow chaotically, with lots of bells and whistles".  Now, I agree
that's a real problem; the Hacker's Dictionary called it Creeping
Featurism (CF).  But I think the Second System Effect (SSE) may be
different; Brooks was talking about designing a new (second) system,
not evolving an existing one.  The difference is that in SSE one
designs an overly complex beast from the beginning, rather than having
the beast acquire a kitchen sink as it evolves via CF.

So, here's my question again (well, several questions).
1. Is s.s.e still a problem? or do people
	a. no longer build "second systems", just evolve existing ones
	b. if they build a "second system", they now avoid the "effect"
2. Regardless of whether SSE is a problem, is it (conceptually)
   completely dominated by the ill effects of CF? That is, should we
   ignore it as relatively unimportant, since addressing CF is
	a. more important
	b. would also indirectly address SSE as well.

I don't have any good idea at the moment of how to combat CF, either,
other than appeals to "discipline" and "conceptual integrity" (the
latter another term I learned from Brooks).  Back when I was one of 3
people in charge of evolving an electronic mail agent, I can recall
having several disputes wherein we refused to add new features because
they "didn't fit".  But we had a captive market and effective
"creative control", so we could afford to be arrogant.



--

David Alex Lamb				internet: dalamb@umiacs.umd.edu


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