Big ball of mud

A big ball of mud is a software system that lacks a perceivable software architecture.

Description

Although undesirable from a software engineering point of view, such systems are common in practice due to business pressures, developer turnover, and software entropy.

They are a type of design anti-pattern.

Joel Moses has been credited with coining the phrase in the 1970s.

See also

• Design pattern
• Software entroph
• Software architecture
• Software system
• Spaghetti code
• Technical debt

External links

• Big ball of mud @ Wikipedia