second-system effect

{{Short description|Project management phenomenon}}

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.{{cite web |url=http://catb.org/jargon/html/S/second-system-effect.html |title=Second-system effect |last1=Raymond |first1=Eric |author1-link=Eric S. Raymond |work=The Jargon File |access-date=June 24, 2013}}

The phrase was first used by Fred Brooks in his book The Mythical Man-Month, first published in 1975. It described the jump from a set of simple operating systems on the IBM 700/7000 series to OS/360 on the 360 series,{{FOLDOC|Second-system+effect}} which happened in 1964.{{cite book |last1=Brooks |first1=Frederick P. Jr. |author1-link=Fred Brooks |year=1975 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/mythicalmanmonth00broo/page/53 |chapter=The Second-System Effect |title=The Mythical Man-Month: essays on software engineering |pages=53–58 |publisher=Addison Wesley Longman |isbn=0-201-00650-2}}

See also

References

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