The mythical man-month

essays on software engineering

No cover

Frederick P. Brooks: The mythical man-month (1975, Addison-Wesley)

195 pages

English language

Published Nov. 8, 1975 by Addison-Wesley.

View on OpenLibrary

Classic text on the human side of software engineering, containing essays on the management of software teams, projections about how computer languages and tools will evolve, and philosophical speculation. Unlike most other books about computing, Brooks' work has been remarkably enduring, remaining in print for at least four decades. The book is most famous for its statement of Brooks' Law: "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later".

4 editions

This book was written in the sixties, yet, I find its recommendations and requirements for software development are just as helpful, humorous and educational in the 21st century. I still don't understand how they got any work done back then with manually teletypes, printed requirements documents being updated everyday and the like, but they still had the exact same problems we do now. returnreturnThe two things I took away most, "the more people you add to a late project, the later the project is." Along with the title of the mythical man month, is the idea "nine women can't make a baby in a month." The other point, was that whatever your estimate is for development time, you need to consider at least twice as much for validation. This is counter intuitive, you develop it once, you test it once, and that test takes less time than writing code did, …

Subjects

  • Computer programming management.
  • Electronic digital computers -- Programming.