creeping featurism

[common]

1. Describes a systematic tendency to load more {chrome} and {feature}s onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. See also {feeping creaturism}. "You know, the main problem with {BSD} Unix has always been creeping featurism."
2. More generally, the tendency for anything complicated to become even more complicated because people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too". (See {feature}.) 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. The GNU hello program, intended to illustrate {GNU} command-line switch and coding conventions, is also a wonderful parody of creeping featurism; the distribution changelog is particularly funny. 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}.

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