Accidental Complexity
Programming tasks which could be eliminated with better tools (as opposed to essential complexity inherent in the problem being solved).
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Origin
Fred Brooks introduced the distinction in his 1986 paper No Silver Bullet — Essence and Accident in Software Engineering, delivered at the IFIP Tenth World Computing Conference in Dublin. Drawing on Aristotle's philosophical categories, Brooks divided software difficulties into "essential" — inherent to the problem — and "accidental" — imposed through tools, languages, or architecture. The paper was later reprinted in the anniversary edition of his landmark book The Mythical Man-Month, cementing both terms in software engineering discourse.
Updated February 22, 2026