The rest of engineering isn't immune to this, but it's most prevalent in software because of it being soft. Just about everything you can imagine can be done.
This tends to pile requirements on, and you end up in a bad place.
You don't often get "I want a building just like that one" becoming "except make it out of glass", then "actually add a floor or two".
But I've come across exactly this in software. Someone I know asked a friend to make a copy of a well known auction site. Then he had to change the whole backend and add a load of features. Needless to say, it ended badly.
This tends to pile requirements on, and you end up in a bad place.
You don't often get "I want a building just like that one" becoming "except make it out of glass", then "actually add a floor or two".
But I've come across exactly this in software. Someone I know asked a friend to make a copy of a well known auction site. Then he had to change the whole backend and add a load of features. Needless to say, it ended badly.