Quote:
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Originally Posted by Pravus Prime
1. The system is created to fulfill a purpose.
2. The system grows to encompass multiple purposes.
3. The system becomes too large to fulfill any purpose and exists to be self-sustaining.
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I'm not sure I have heard it put quite this way before, but this pattern describes the life cycle of a large software system.
The original software is written to satisfy a need. If it does that reasonably well, it is expanded to deal with other, related problems. Finally, it gets so firmly entrenched that it is difficult to get rid of it - even if one knew how.