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creeping featurism
(foldoc) | creeping featurism
feature creep
/kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ (Or "feature creep") A
systematic tendency to load more chrome and features onto
systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have
possessed when originally designed. "The main problem with
BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism."
More generally, creeping featurism is the tendency for
anything to become more complicated because people keep saying
"Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too".
The result is usually a patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc
step at a time, rather than being planned. Planning is a lot
of work, but it's easy to add just one extra little feature to
help someone, and then another, and another, .... When
creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer.
Usually this term is used to describe computer programs, but
it could also be said of the federal government, the IRS 1040
form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes afflicts
conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also
creeping elegance.
[Jargon File]
(1997-08-03)
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creeping featurism
(jargon) | creeping featurism
/kree'ping fee´chr·izm/, n.
[common]
1. Describes a systematic tendency to load more chrome and features
onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed
when originally designed. See also feeping creaturism. “You know, the
main problem with BSD Unix has always been creeping featurism.”
2. More generally, the tendency for anything complicated to become even
more complicated because people keep saying “Gee, it would be even better
if it had this feature too”. (See feature.) The result is usually a
patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being
planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra
little feature to help someone ... and then another ... and another....
When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's like a cancer. The GNU hello
program, intended to illustrate GNU command-line switch and coding
conventions, is also a wonderful parody of creeping featurism; the
distribution changelog is particularly funny. Usually this term is used to
describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal
government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes
afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also {
creeping elegance}.
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