Misfeature /mis-fee'chr/ Or /mis'fee`chr/ N. [common] A Feature That Eventually Causes Lossage, Possibly Because It Is Not Adequate For A New Situation That Has Evolved.

Home › Fortune Cookies › Jargon File

misfeature /mis-fee'chr/ or /mis'fee`chr/ n.


[common] A feature that eventually causes lossage, possibly because
it is not adequate for a new situation that has evolved. Since it
results from a deliberate and properly implemented feature, a
misfeature is not a bug. Nor is it a simple unforeseen side
effect; the term implies that the feature in question was carefully
planned, but its long-term consequences were not accurately or
adequately predicted (which is quite different from not having
thought ahead at all). A misfeature can be a particularly stubborn
problem to resolve, because fixing it usually involves a
substantial philosophical change to the structure of the system
involved.

Many misfeatures (especially in user-interface design) arise
because the designers/implementors mistake their personal tastes
for laws of nature. Often a former feature becomes a misfeature
because trade-offs were made whose parameters subsequently change
(possibly only in the judgment of the implementors). "Well, yeah,
it is kind of a misfeature that file names are limited to six
characters, but the original implementors wanted to save directory
space and we're stuck with it for now."

Related: