📖 Book
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Intermediate
Why we picked it This is the source of the second-system effect, the exact failure mode in your question. Brooks describes how the second system a person designs is the most dangerous, because they cram in every feature and refinement they held back the first time. Read the second-system chapter to recognize the urge in yourself before it bloats your rebuild into something slow to ship and worse than what it replaced.
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
From Addison-Wesley (Fred Brooks) by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. 336 pages
- The second system tempts you to over-build with deferred features
- Confidence from version one is exactly what makes version two risky
- Discipline about scope is what keeps a rebuild from ballooning
