Talk:Second-system effect

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> is when one is designing the successor to a relatively small, elegant, and successful system,

Actually... no. The effect applies independent of the size or elegance of the previous system. In fact one can argue that the first system doesn't even need to be successful, if another incentive is there to guarantuee the building of the second system. And in fact Brooks even mentions that this effect appears for a person who is building his second system (so it can be even two unrelated projects).

I would have cited the article, but I don't Brooks book lying around to actually check on it.

-- There is a new name for part of the growth of work in the effect - refactoring. This isn't to say that refactoring is bad or even that it's not needed. What seems to happen is that the team is relieved to get the first system out there, but they are nevertheless haunted by the ugliness that is ever so clear to them from hind sight. The matter could be debated about the team's design sacrifices to get something done, but that's beside the point. In taking on the requirements for the second system, however, the team is scheming to amend their ways. Again this would be fine - if management understands, budgets for, and can sell the cost of the refactoring. Otherwise the extra work and costs sneak in as Brooks details.

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I'd question the popular culture one. The tendancy for sequels to be of lower quality, when it comes to movies, is better explained by regression to the mean - bad movies don't get many sequels, so if the quality of a sequel is independant of the quality of the original, the odds are that the sequel won't be as good. Michael Ralston 00:28, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Jumping the shark has more to do with running out of reasonable storylines that can fit within the premise of the show. Outlandish plots are chosen out of desperation. The sophmore effect is a matter of an individual being less motivated the second time around. Both of these are quite different than the second-system effect, which is the result of overly ambitious goals the second time around.

Personally I think the whole section should be deleted. This article is about systems development. Not every wikipedia article needs a pop-culture tie-in. Jorbettis 04:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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I just wanted to seond the above comment. The 'second-system effect' is practically the opposite of the 'sophmore slump'. The slump is caused by lack of motivation to do anything. The former is caused by over-eagerness leading one to try to do everything. Baxissimo 02:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)baxissimo[reply]

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I'd wipe the whole thing, save a couple of sentences. The piece is stated as a factual description of a general scientifically proven mechanism, yet what is being described is someone's hypothesis, in particular about a narrow domain. The popular culture angle in particular is nonsense - listen to Beethoven's 2nd symphony some time. Danja 19:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going on a rather long train ride for the holidays and have Mythical Man Month in my bookshelf, I think I might reread it and then revise this thing to be more strict to Brooks's original definition. At the very least there seems to be agreement among the interested parties that the "pop culture" section needs to die. Jorbettis 03:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would advocate AGAINST the total elimination of the "'pop-culture' section", as it has useful analogical effect on the lay reader (such as myself). Also, the mention of quality-degradation effects of various second efforts (such as the second solo effect), though not conceptually identical, are consistent, i think, with the content of a paperless encyclopedia article on wikipedia. 74.61.127.24 07:09, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I find the claim that CORBA is successful to be question, as do I question the overall claim that it helps to avoid the second-system effect. - JLA

References

and a large number of other significant, long-lasting software projects.

What projects? Name them. This article is in dire need of references. Shinobu 20:31, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OS/2

OS/2 was not “the successor to a relatively small, elegant, and successful system.” It was the successor to MS-DOS. I move to delete the reference. Yea or Nay? --MushroomCloud 17:50, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Duke Nukem Forever

Would DNF's development (as captured in this wired article: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_duke_nukem/) be a good example of the second-system effect? 63.148.123.35 (talk) 07:02, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]