From: The Second System
Many years ago, somewhere around the start of my career, I read the book The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks. If you create software, in any form of it, you should have read this. There’s no point in explaining why, and I’m not here to sell the book — if you love your profession, read it.
Brooks devotes five pages of the book to the phenomenon of the second system. That’s a bit too much really; for the concept of the second system is something simple and so fundamentally human, that it can be understood by just a few paragraphs, maybe even a blog post. Why it is so interesting, however, is its omnipresence in just about all aspects of software development.
Consider: a person develops a software. A tool, let’s say, that solves a problem faced by his team daily. He shows it to his colleagues. They like it. They love the fact that it saves them time and effort. They’ve a few suggestions, however. A few things that’d make it more convenient for them. Sure, says the developer, happy to help. He realizes some very cool and helpful features cannot be added without changing basic assumptions and algorithms in the code. So those features will have to wait.
Days go by. The software is a hit. The developer has incorporated quite a few suggestions from his happy users. There are some cool features, however, that’d make it really a blockbuster. It’d take time though, since the core design will have to be changed substantially to implement these. He realizes how the design should have been in the first place — more general, more flexible, like this, not like that, use this, not that. The scribbles on napkins and doodles on whiteboard develop into UML diagrams. He researches similar tools offered by others, and realizes that with the new features his software would simply be the best in the market.
It’s not easy, he realizes. He shouldn’t really have had to do this, if the original design was more open and flexible. And more generalized. Backends, what about backends — of course, it should be able to work with any database! Yes, that’s what has to be done. Quite generic, of course. That’s how it should have been, always.
Most of the old code was thrown away, since they couldn’t be refactored into the new design, or had assumptions that tied to specific systems and situations. His faithful colleagues still used the old software, however, since it solved many of their problems. The developer worked all his spare time on building the second system.
Stop.
At this point, the tired architect would like to interrupt the gentle reader. Because the story does not end here, or ever. The building of the second system goes on. And on, and on. Until they’re forcibly put to death by emptied budgets, tired management, or burned-out developers. Second systems are tempting visions painted by the devil himself, take the path and you’ll find yourself in purgatory sooner or later.
The second system originates from a deep, basic need of humans — to make things better. To correct mistakes. To live life one more time, without making the same mistakes again. The Undo button. Do it till you get it right. Citius, Altius, Fortius.
The second system is not a disease, it is a symptom. Which indicates that the people involved have not worked on a second system, or are not aware of what is the second system.
If you haven’t worked on a second system, you just can’t appreciate it. As they say, good judgement comes from experience, and experience from bad judgement. It makes you a better architect, like how pain makes you appreciate health better.
Look around your world today — do you see people engaged in second systems? People trying to build the “next version” of their software that will be the “biggest and most light-trippin’-fantastic” ever? Versions that keep on getting written? Rewritten? Refactored? People trying to create their own software that will solve all the problems of the previous one? Programming languages? Web frameworks? IDEs?
If you haven’t been there, be aware enough to catch yourself from falling into the trap. Good luck.