[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Admiral LSD
And just who determines the difference between "utterly useless and redundant junk" and "earth-shatteringly brilliant new feature one couldn't possibly live without"? You? Me?

The end-user.

EDIT; incidentally, feature creep is best defined as the addition of functionality to software beyond that which is initially required as per the specification.  Generally this has the consequence of complicating testing, delaying the delivery/development process and adding in additional points of complexity/failure.  

When these 'features' are added in response to a perceived commercial requirement (a perceived desire by the customer, often served by other 3rd party products in the case of Windows in particular), it's indicative of a willingness to compromise overall software quality in return for more profit.  When the features are added on the whim of the developer, it indicates poor project specification and control.

It's particularly bad in proprietary software because the specification process is more inclined to be towards a specific core user requirement, and decided between a finite working group.  With open source software, there's less of a rigid structure for project management (dispirate group of individuals often geographically isolated, more personal than professional investment) and also more of a realistic perception of end user requirements (in terms of said end-users being directly involved in development).

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Admiral LSD
What's funny is that, in terms of software, "feature creep" is only negative when proprietary software is involved. Every open source project (including the SCP) suffers from it in one form or another yet it's only a bad thing when a big company like MS do it. Why is that?

Nope. It's pretty much always negative. Taking the dear old SCP as an example. Feature creep means that everyone adds new features and doesn't spend enough time chasing down bugs.

However with something like the SCP it's somewhat expected precisely because everyone is working in their spare time. Like Aldo says that's less forgivable in a big company with professional programmers.

[Bobboau]

yeah, it's actualy a problem we agnoledge ourselves and try to avoid.

[mikhael]

Bah, creeping featurism is very simple to determine. If it adds to the core purpose of a product, its a feature. OpenOffice's ability to open Word files, tabbed browing in Firefox and builtin networking in Windows 9x and NT/2k/xp are FEATURES. Adding skinnable interfaces to a calculator, or making Word host an MP3 player inside its interface is creeping featurism.

[Admiral LSD]

Again, an entirely subjective judgement. I'm sure that, if you looked around, you'd not only find people who felt that all three of the things you hold up as being "features" were as useless to them as mammary glands on the male bovine but also people who felt a skinnable calculator or an MP3 player in word would be the best thing since sliced bread. The point is that what constitutes "feature creep" to any given person is based entirely on their own taste.

[Bobboau]

no, it isn't, it's entierly based on a) weather or not the feature has anything to do with the product. or b) if the addition of new features is causeing a detromental effect on (particularly the manainence of) exsisting one.

[Admiral LSD]

Whether a given feature has or should have anything to do with a product is yet another subjective judgement. What one person thinks should be a basic part of a product may not agree with anothers. Who would be correct in such cases? You can't objectively answer such a question.

And b) is just a fact of programming life once you start moving beyond simple "Hello World" type programs. As programs grow larger and more complicated - for whatever reason - they get increasingly harder to maintain.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Admiral LSD
In either case it still represents progress. Whether it's for the better or for the worse is an entirely subjective evaluation.

Progress generally means change for the better. If you're saying that it can mean change for the worse then we're only arguing semanitics and your original point that only low-end users complain about feature creep is pretty much proved incorrect.

[StratComm]

"Feature Creep" does not only sacrifice ease of development, but for those of us who do not use the features added it also hampers the user experience.  Word is a word processor.  It reads the things I type on my keyboard and makes them look pretty.  To use the example given here, an integrated MP3 player DOES NOT make Word perform its function any better.  In fact, it only serves to slow it down.  In the case of a system BIOS, that's supposed to be for higher-level users, and we don't need the MS help dog or Clippy walking us through it step-by-step.  More often than not, we don't want it.  I don't want my BIOS to keep my calendar or let me save pictures, I want it to perform base-level configurations of my computer.  Period.  The operating system is there precisely for those other things.

[WMCoolmon]

Yeah, I think all I'd change about my current BIOS to upgrade it would be to actually add descriptions for all the items (rather than just a few).

Change it completely, and I'd go for the embedded OS deal.