In software development, small matter of programming (SMOP) or simple matter of programming is a phrase used to ironically indicate that a suggested feature or design change would in fact require a great deal of effort.
A piece of program code, not yet written, whose anticipated length is significantly greater than its intellectual complexity.
It is also used ironically to imply that a difficult problem can be easily solved because a program can be written to do it.
Also SMOUP (smoop), a Simple Matter Of Micro-Programming (if handwritten, using a Greek mu).
[3] The game essentially consists of proposing seemingly simple adjustments to a design, leading to unexpected consequences and delays.