Shiny Object Syndrome

Dilettante_ 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

They're just letting anyone make a Wikipedia page these days huh

d4v3 22 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Shiny object syndrome is the situation ..."

'The situation'? Can't help but feel this is very imprecise and unserious language.

	▲	onemoresoop 3 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Like Magpie developers? It may be somewhat humorous but that’s what these analogies look like from the outside.

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codeulike 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is just a rebranding of novelty bias to make it seem like a new idea

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tough 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There's a meta-recursion there that's kinda funny innit

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jere an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Good one.

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rwoerz 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Novelty bias is soooo 2025

	▲	jareklupinski 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		cant wait till fads are retro again

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Ozzie_osman 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I call it Toddler Soccer Syndrome. Ball's over there? Let's all chase it. Oh, moved over here now? Everyone run the other way.

	▲	rf15 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I know it as dogs-with-ball syndrome, and rather used that analogy to teach my son what not to do when learning to play football.

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venning 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The earliest reference on Wikipedia is 2011, but I was saying "Shiny Object Syndrome" and even specifically abbreviating it "SOS" by at least 2005.

I know that I first heard it from somewhere else, but I do not remember where. I'm pretty sure it was a TV show.

Does any one remember where it originated from?

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xandrius an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why is such a small article being upvoted? It's basically just a definition page.

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mcphage 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In boardgame communities, it’s called “Cult of the New”.

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gspr 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I wonder if this has any relevance at all to a bunch of new stuff that people on HN seem very obsessed over these days.

	▲	rf15 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		No no, this is a genuinely new and unrelated thing few people have seen so far.

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duke_sam 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

An aspect of this I find interesting is that previously effort was a reasonably good barrier to making something new. If a feature/library existed someone cared enough to put the work in to make it exist.

Now it’s just a question of tokens. The presentation/feature list is no sign of effort or caring. So we get limitless new shiny things to try and filter through

	▲	drawfloat 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Pretty sure bringing up tokens immediately is itself an example of this.
	▲	Sharlin 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It’s possibly a good thing in disguise. Maybe it will make software dev finally more inclined to focus on tested and true technologies rather than chasing trendy novelty stuff. (Oh, who am I kidding, it’s AI that do tech decisions now and they choose whatever stuff that’s overrepresented in their training data, or just NIH stuff, which has inexplicably become a virtue, like measuring progress by lines of code spent has become. )