Critical mass in software engineering is a term used to describe a stage in software life cycle: when the source code grows too large to effectively manage without a complete rewrite.[1] At the Critical Mass stage, fixing a bug introduces one or more new bugs.[2]
Tools such as high-level programming languages, object-oriented programming languages [3], and techniques such as programming in the large, code refactoring and test-driven development, exist to make it easier to maintain large, complicated programs.