The Inner-Platform Effect

by Alex PapadimoulisPublished: 21 Apr 2006

What happens

A loan system is built so that users can change its data structures with a built-in modeler, instead of asking programmers.
A developer is brought in to add one field to one form.
The modeler has become so complex that only a programmer can use it, and the article names the pattern: a system so customizable that it ends up a poor replica of the platform it was built with.

Why it lands

The name stuck far beyond the site. Database tables that store "entity, attribute, value" rows, YAML that grows conditionals, rule engines that need their own debugger: each started as flexibility and ended as a second, worse platform inside the first.