🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Sep4.2...@nmt.edu>, john@nmt (John Shipman) writes:
>Rumor has it that at a certain point in the development of
>the system software for this machine (in the early 1960's),
>a manager came in one night and destroyed all the copies of
>the specifications and software, including backups.  He did
>this deliberately in order to encourage the so-called
>``second system effect,'' so that the software developers
>would keep the parts of the design that were done right,
>yet have a chance to re-do the klugey parts correctly.

I don't know whether or not this story is true; however, if the phrase
"second system effect" is used here the same way as in THE MYTHICAL
MAN-MONTH, it is not something a manager would want to encourage.

In that book, the "second system effect" refers to the tendency that a
software designer working on his or her second major project will put
in all of the cute ideas that didn't quite fit into the first.  Such
second projects, supposedly, tend to turn into monstrosities.
-- 
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| Matthew Austern | austern@lbl.bitnet  | I don't use pens.  I write with |
| (415) 644-2618  | aus...@ux5.lbl.gov | a goose quill dipped in venom.  |
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