creeping featurism
/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)