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The Mythical Man-Month

created by Harry

(idea) by ggould (7.8 y) (print)   ?   (I like it!) Sat Nov 13 1999 at 9:00:14

The notion, common among people too many abstraction barriers away from real humans, that productivity is a meaningful quantity.

"If one woman can have a baby in nine months, nine women could have a baby in one month!"

The title and subject of a book by Fred Brooks, often referred to as TMMM, which inspires nearly religious reverence among many computer types.

(thing) by TallRoo (3.8 d) (print)   ?   (I like it!) Wed Aug 02 2000 at 16:09:19

One of the most respected books on the subject of Software Engineering. Frederick P. Brooks Jr. worked for IBM, as a project manager for System/390 and OS/360.
The front cover has a picture of some bears and other wildlife, entitled "Mural of La Brea Tar Pits". (Chapter 1 is an essay entitled, The Tar Pit)

ISBN: 0-201-00650-2
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
First written 1975, Reprinted Jan 1982.

(thing) by Dhericean (2.3 y) (print)   ?   (I like it!) Mon Aug 14 2000 at 14:41:31

A seminal book about structuring and managing large software projects subtitled "Essays on Software Engineering". Written by Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. Project manager for the development of the Operating System/360 for IBM. It was published in 1975 and still has much that is relevant even in current development environments. To a great extent this is the foundation upon which all later software development methodologies are based.

The Mythical Man-Month of the title refers to the spurious belief amongst some non-programming managers (PHB) that if it takes a programmer six-months to develop a module then six programmers could do the job in one month.

Having looked at Brian Feldman's node below I realise I have to get a new copy as mine only has 15 chapters. I guess it is looking a little dog-eared.

printable version
chaos

Mongolian hordes programming naive perceptions about software development Slow Comfortable Screw Up Against the Wall The Original GNU Announcement
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cuddle Fred Brooks Tower of Babel effect Knights Templar
i740 Brooks's Law The shortest hour known to man Using Red Hat and it feels so good
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