The use of large numbers of loosely coupled programmers in an
attempt to wedge a great many features into a product in a
short time. Though there have been memorable gang bangs
(e.g. that over-the-weekend assembler port mentioned in
Steven Levy's "Hackers"), most are perpetrated by large
companies trying to meet deadlines; the inevitable result is
enormous buggy masses of code entirely lacking in
orthogonality. When market-driven managers make a list of
all the features the competition has and assign one programmer
to implement each, the probability of maintaining a coherent
(or even functional) design goes infinitesimal. See also
firefighting, Mongolian Hordes technique, Conway's Law.
[Jargon File]
Nearby terms:
gamut « GAN « GANDALF « gang bang » GAP » GAPLog » garbageabetical order
