creeping featurism

jargon /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)