The software Peter principle is used in software engineering to describe a dying project which has little by little become too complex to be understood even by its own developers.

It is well known in the industry as a silent killer of projects, and by the time the symptoms arise it is often too late to do anything about it. Good managers can avoid this disaster by establishing clear coding practices where unnecessarily clever and sophisticated code and design is avoided.

The name is used in the book C++ FAQs (see below), and is derived from the Peter principle — a theory about incompetence in hierarchical organizations.

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