Second-system effect explained

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.^[1]

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, which happened in 1964.^[2]

See also

• Anti-pattern
• Feature creep
• Inner-platform effect
• Osborne effect
• Sophomore slump
• Unix philosophy
• Examples in information technology: IPv6 deployment, Taligent, Workplace OS, Copland, Rhapsody

External links

• Web site: Things You Should Never Do, Part I . Spolsky . Joel . Joel Spolsky . April 6, 2000 . Joel on Software . October 15, 2021.
• Web site: Notes on Haskell . August 21, 2007 . Turoff . Adam . October 15, 2021.
• Web site: Rewrites Considered Harmful? . Gunton . Neil . July 20, 2008 . October 15, 2021.
• Web site: The Big Rewrite . Fowler . Chad . https://web.archive.org/web/20161208161441/http://chadfowler.com/2006/12/27/the-big-rewrite.html . December 8, 2016.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Second-system effect . Raymond . Eric . Eric S. Raymond . The Jargon File . June 24, 2013.
2. Book: Brooks . Frederick P. Jr. . Fred Brooks . 1975 . https://archive.org/details/mythicalmanmonth00broo/page/53 . The Second-System Effect . The Mythical Man-Month: essays on software engineering . 53–58 . Addison Wesley Longman . 0-201-00650-2.