I'm covered in software engineering books at the moment writing up
conference stuff and I happened to crack open a copy of "The Mythical
Man-Month" and felt I should remind everyone about the...
--> *** SECOND SYSTEM EFFECT *** <--
which I'm sure we all know about but sometimes forget.
"The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using all
the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first
one. The result ... is a 'big pile'."
-- Fred Brooks Jr, "The Mythical Man-Month" p 55
This isn't attached to any particular discussion going on at the
moment, I just thought it should be shouted loudly every once in a
while over the course of Perl 6's design to keep everyone on their
toes. I'd recommend everyone who has a copy to just skim through
chapter 5 of MM-M once again.
PS Someone's going to argue that Perl 6 isn't a second system, its
the Nth system. The exact value of N doesn't really matter, we're
still very much in danger of the second system effect.
--
Michael G. Schwern <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.pobox.com/~schwern/
Perl6 Quality Assurance <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Kwalitee Is Job One
How can I stoop so low? Years of practise, that's how. It's been hard
going but now I can stoop lower than a pygmy limbo dancer.
-- BOFH
