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Book description

Table of contents.

• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Author
• Preface to the 20th Anniversary Edition
• Preface to the First Edition
• Chapter 1. The Tar Pit
• Chapter 2. The Mythical Man-Month
• Chapter 3. The Surgical Team
• Chapter 4. Aristocracy, Democracy, and System Design
• Chapter 5. The Second-System Effect
• Chapter 6. Passing the Word
• Chapter 7. Why Did the Tower of Babel Fail?
• Chapter 8. Calling the Shot
• Chapter 9. Ten Pounds in a Five-Pound Sack
• Chapter 10. The Documentary Hypothesis
• Chapter 11. Plan to Throw One Away
• Chapter 12. Sharp Tools
• Chapter 13. The Whole and the Parts
• Chapter 14. Hatching a Catastrophe
• Chapter 15. The Other Face
• Chapter 16. No Silver Bullet—Essence and Accident in Software Engineering
• Chapter 17. "No Silver Bullet" Refined
• Chapter 18. Propositions of The Mythical Man-Month: True or False?
• Chapter 19. The Mythical Man-Month after 20 Years
• Epilogue. Fifty Years of Wonder, Excitement, and Joy
• Notes and References

Product information

• Title: Mythical Man-Month, The: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition
• Release date:
• Publisher(s): Addison-Wesley Professional

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The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition

Description.

Few books on software project management have been as influential and timeless as The Mythical Man-Month . With a blend of software engineering facts and thought-provoking opinions, Fred Brooks offers insight for anyone managing complex projects. These essays draw from his experience as project manager for the IBM System/360 computer family and then for OS/360, its massive software system. Now, 20 years after the initial publication of his book, Brooks has revisited his original ideas and added new thoughts and advice, both for readers already familiar with his work and for readers discovering it for the first time. The added chapters contain (1) a crisp condensation of all the propositions asserted in the original book, including Brooks' central argument in The Mythical Man-Month: that large programming projects suffer management problems different from small ones due to the division of labor; that the conceptual integrity of the product is therefore critical; and that it is difficult but possible to achieve this unity; (2) Brooks' view of these propositions a generation later; (3) a reprint of his classic 1986 paper "No Silver Bullet"; and (4) today's thoughts on the 1986 assertion, "There will be no silver bullet within ten years."

About the Author

Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., was born in 1931 in Durham, NC. He received an A.B. summa cum laude in physics from Duke and a Ph.D. in computer science from Harvard, under Howard Aiken, the inventor of the early Harvard computers. At Chapel Hill, Dr. Brooks founded the Department of Computer Science and chaired it from 1964 through 1984. He has served on the National Science Board and the Defense Science Board. His current teaching and research is in computer architecture, molecular graphics, and virtual environments. He joined IBM, working in Poughkeepsie and Yorktown, NY, 1956-1965. He is best known as the "father of the IBM System/360", having served as project manager for its development and later as manager of the Operating System/360 software project during its design phase. For this work he, Bob Evans, and Erick Block were awarded and received a National Medal of Technology in 1985. Dr. Brooks and Dura Sweeney in 1957 patented a Stretch interrupt system for the IBM Stretch computer that introduced most features of today's interrupt systems. He coined the term computer architecture . His System/360 team first achieved strict compatibility, upward and downward, in a computer family. His early concern for word processing led to his selection of the 8-bit byte and the lowercase alphabet for the System/360, engineering of many new 8-bit input/output devices, and providing a character-string datatype in PL/I. In 1964 he founded the Computer Science Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and chaired it for 20 years. Currently, he is Kenan Professor of Computer Science. His principal research is in real-time, three-dimensional, computer graphics-"virtual reality." His research has helped biochemists solve the structure of complex molecules and enabled architects to "walk through" buildings still being designed. He is pioneering the use of force display to supplement visual graphics. Brooks distilled the successes and failures of the development of Operating System/360 in The Mythical Man-Month: Essays in Software Engineering, (1975). He further examined software engineering in his well-known 1986 paper, "No Silver Bullet." He is just completing a two-volume research monograph, Computer Architecture, with Professor Gerrit Blaauw. Now, 20 years after the initial publication of his book, Brooks has revisited his original ideas and added new thoughts and advice within The Mythical Man-Month, Anniversary Edition. Brooks has served on the National Science Board and the Defense Science Board. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received the the IEEE John von Neumann Medal, the IEEE Computer Society's McDowell and Computer Pioneer Awards, the ACM Allen Newell and Distinguished Service Awards, the AFIPS Harry Goode Award, and an honorary Doctor of Technical Science from ETH-Zürich.

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Mythical Man-Month, The: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition Paperback – Aug. 2 1995

Purchase options and add-ons.

Few books on software project management have been as influential and timeless as The Mythical Man-Month . With a blend of software engineering facts and thought-provoking opinions, Fred Brooks offers insight for anyone managing complex projects. These essays draw from his experience as project manager for the IBM System/360 computer family and then for OS/360, its massive software system. Now, 20 years after the initial publication of his book, Brooks has revisited his original ideas and added new thoughts and advice, both for readers already familiar with his work and for readers discovering it for the first time.

The added chapters contain (1) a crisp condensation of all the propositions asserted in the original book, including Brooks' central argument in The Mythical Man-Month: that large programming projects suffer management problems different from small ones due to the division of labor; that the conceptual integrity of the product is therefore critical; and that it is difficult but possible to achieve this unity; (2) Brooks' view of these propositions a generation later; (3) a reprint of his classic 1986 paper "No Silver Bullet"; and (4) today's thoughts on the 1986 assertion, "There will be no silver bullet within ten years."

• ISBN-10 9780201835953
• ISBN-13 978-0201835953
• Publisher Addison-Wesley Professional
• Publication date Aug. 2 1995
• Language English
• Dimensions 23.04 x 15.52 x 1.91 cm
• Print length 336 pages
• See all details

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From the Publisher

Why The Mythical Man-Month is Still Recommended Today

Still as relevant today as it was 40 years ago.

"Brooks lays out a formalism to how to approach [people and process problems] that let teams deliver on the technology, a formalism that is as relevant now as it was 40 years ago, and I suspect, 40 years (or 400, if we are still around then) in the future as well." —Michael McIntyre, Silently Failing blog

It's a cautionary tale

"It has been almost 50 years since this book was published and we are still making the same mistakes while managing software projects. This cautionary tale should be read at least once by all engineers." —Tomas Fernandez, Siemaphore blog

Gets software engineers to the next level

"In my opinion, understanding the art of programming systems product is one of many steps taking a good software engineer to the next level. The Mythical Man-Month was first published many years ago and still the perfect book for this topic...I thought it was no longer relevant in the age of Agile and Continuous Delivery at first, but I could not be more wrong." —Kaga.Dev

Product description

From amazon, from the inside flap.

Peter Gordon, now a Publishing Partner at Addison-Wesley, has been working with me patiently and helpfully since 1980. He proposed that we prepare an Anniversary Edition. We decided not to revise the original, but to reprint it untouched (except for trivial corrections) and to augment it with more current thoughts.

Chapter 16 reprints "No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering," a 1986 IFIPS paper that grew out of my experience chairing a Defense Science Board study on military software. My co-authors of that study, and our executive secretary, Robert L. Patrick, were invaluable in bringing me back into touch with real-world large software projects. The paper was reprinted in 1987 in the IEEE Computer magazine, which gave it wide circulation.

"No Silver Bullet" proved provocative. It predicted that a decade would not see any programming technique which would by itself bring an order-of-magnitude improvement in software productivity. The decade has a year to run; my prediction seems safe. "NSB" has stimulated more and more spirited discussion in the literature than has The Mythical Man-Month. Chapter 17, therefore, comments on some of the published critique and updates the opinions set forth in 1986.

In preparing my retrospective and update of The Mythical Man-Month, I was struck by how few of the propositions asserted in it have been critiqued, proven, or disproven by ongoing software engineering research and experience. It proved useful to me now to catalog those propositions in raw form, stripped of supporting arguments and data. In hopes that these bald statements will invite arguments and facts to prove, disprove, update, or refine those propositions, I have included this outline as Chapter 18.

Chapter 19 is the updating essay itself. The reader should be warned that the new opinions are not nearly so well informed by experience in the trenches as the original book was. I have been at work in a university, not industry, and on small-scale projects, not large ones. Since 1986, I have only taught software engineering, not done research in it at all. My research has rather been on virtual reality and its applications.

In preparing this retrospective, I have sought the current views of friends who are indeed at work in software engineering. For a wonderful willingness to share views, to comment thoughtfully on drafts, and to re-educate me, I am indebted to Barry Boehm, Ken Brooks, Dick Case, James Coggins, Tom DeMarco, Jim McCarthy, David Parnas, Earl Wheeler, and Edward Yourdon. Fay Ward has superbly handled the technical production of the new chapters.

I thank Gordon Bell, Bruce Buchanan, Rick Hayes-Roth, my colleagues on the Defense Science Board Task Force on Military Software, and, most especially, David Parnas for their insights and stimulating ideas for, and Rebekah Bierly for technical production of, the paper printed here as Chapter 16. Analyzing the software problem into the categories of essence and accident was inspired by Nancy Greenwood Brooks, who used such analysis in a paper on Suzuki violin pedagogy.

Addison-Wesley's house custom did not permit me to acknowledge in the 1975 Preface the key roles played by their staff. Two persons' contributions should be especially cited: Norman Stanton, then Executive Editor, and Herbert Boes, then Art Director. Boes developed the elegant style, which one reviewer especially cited: "wide margins, and imaginative use of typeface and layout." More important, he also made the crucial recommendation that every chapter have an opening picture. (I had only the Tar Pit and Rheims Cathedral at the time.) Finding the pictures occasioned an extra year's work for me, but I am eternally grateful for the counsel.

Deo soli gloria or Soli Deo Gloria -- To God alone be the glory.

Chapel Hill, N.C., F. 0201835959P04062001

From the Back Cover

About the author.

Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., was born in 1931 in Durham, NC. He received an A.B. summa cum laude in physics from Duke and a Ph.D. in computer science from Harvard, under Howard Aiken, the inventor of the early Harvard computers.

At Chapel Hill, Dr. Brooks founded the Department of Computer Science and chaired it from 1964 through 1984. He has served on the National Science Board and the Defense Science Board. His current teaching and research is in computer architecture, molecular graphics, and virtual environments.

He joined IBM, working in Poughkeepsie and Yorktown, NY, 1956-1965. He is best known as the "father of the IBM System/360", having served as project manager for its development and later as manager of the Operating System/360 software project during its design phase. For this work he, Bob Evans, and Erick Block were awarded and received a National Medal of Technology in 1985.

Dr. Brooks and Dura Sweeney in 1957 patented a Stretch interrupt system for the IBM Stretch computer that introduced most features of today's interrupt systems. He coined the term computer architecture . His System/360 team first achieved strict compatibility, upward and downward, in a computer family. His early concern for word processing led to his selection of the 8-bit byte and the lowercase alphabet for the System/360, engineering of many new 8-bit input/output devices, and providing a character-string datatype in PL/I.

In 1964 he founded the Computer Science Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and chaired it for 20 years. Currently, he is Kenan Professor of Computer Science . His principal research is in real-time, three-dimensional, computer graphics-"virtual reality." His research has helped biochemists solve the structure of complex molecules and enabled architects to "walk through" buildings still being designed. He is pioneering the use of force display to supplement visual graphics.

Brooks distilled the successes and failures of the development of Operating System/360 in The Mythical Man-Month: Essays in Software Engineering , (1975). He further examined software engineering in his well-known 1986 paper, "No Silver Bullet." He is just completing a two-volume research monograph, Computer Architecture , with Professor Gerrit Blaauw. Now, 20 years after the initial publication of his book, Brooks has revisited his original ideas and added new thoughts and advice within The Mythical Man-Month, Anniversary Edition .

Brooks has served on the National Science Board and the Defense Science Board. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received the the IEEE John von Neumann Medal, the IEEE Computer Society's McDowell and Computer Pioneer Awards, the ACM Allen Newell and Distinguished Service Awards, the AFIPS Harry Goode Award, and an honorary Doctor of Technical Science from ETH-Zürich.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Addison-Wesley Professional; 2 edition (Aug. 2 1995)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780201835953
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0201835953
• Item weight ‏ : ‎ 476 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 23.04 x 15.52 x 1.91 cm
• #9 in Microprocessor & System Design
• #46 in PMP Exam
• #97 in Project Management (Books)

About the author

Frederick p. brooks, jr..

Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., is Kenan Professor of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was an architect of the IBM Stretch and Harvest computers. He was Corporate Project Manager for the System/360, including development of the System/360 computer family hardware and the decision to switch computer byte size from 6 to 8 bits. He then managed the initial development of the Operating System/360 software suite: operating system, 16 compilers, communications, and utilities.

He founded the UNC Department of Computer Science in 1964 and chaired it for 20 years. His research there has been in computer architecture, software engineering, and interactive 3-D computer graphics (protein visualization graphics and "virtual reality"). His best-known books are The Mythical Man-Month (1975, 1995); Computer Architecture: Concepts and Evolution (with G.A. Blaauw, 1997); and The Design of Design (2010).

Dr. Brooks has received the National Medal of Technology, the A.M. Turing award of the ACM, the Bower Award and Prize of the Franklin Institute, the John von Neumann Medal of the IEEE, and others. He is a member of the U.S. National Academies of Engineering and of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Academy of Engineering (U.K.) and of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He became a Christian at age 31 and has taught an adult Sunday school class for 35 years. He chaired the Executive Committee for the 1973 Research Triangle Billy Graham Crusade. He and Mrs. Nancy Greenwood Brooks are faculty advisors to a graduate student chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. They have three children and nine grandchildren.

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• The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering Summary

by Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by people who wish to remain anonymous

The Mythical Man-Month is a book describing the "mythical", or hypothetical, idea of a man-month. This fictitious unit can be used to describe the amount of work that one person can do in one month, and the book focuses on the idea that more people added to a project does not necessarily mean that the outcome will occur more quickly.

Brooks claims that, with more men on the job, there are more communication connections that must be maintained between each person. So, using his formula presented in the book, one can determine how fast something can get done, considering the time taken for communication. When the formula generates a negative number, then the project will be done in an even longer time than anticipated.

According to Brooks, overthinking things is also dangerous to the development of new technologies. Especially dangerous is when someone comes out with a second revision of their work. In this revision, there will be things never included the first time, therefore increasing the likelihood of extraneous systems that they had the time to think out. Despite their thinking, Brooks claims these systems are often useless.

Overall, Brooks incorporates a lot about communication into his book. If people were to interact more as one mind, more could be done. However, with so many different opinions (which, he adds, most of which are wrong), then "project time" drastically increases.

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The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering Questions and Answers

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Study Guide for The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering study guide contains a biography of Frederick Brooks Jr., literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
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The mythical man-month and other essays on software engineering Paperback – January 1, 1974

• Print length 221 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Dept. of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Publication date January 1, 1974
• ISBN-10 8178082535
• ISBN-13 978-8178082530
• See all details

4 stars and above

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0006WPPOI
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dept. of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; 1st edition (January 1, 1974)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 221 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 8178082535
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-8178082530
• #1,527 in Software Development (Books)

About the author

Frederick p. brooks, jr..

Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., is Kenan Professor of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was an architect of the IBM Stretch and Harvest computers. He was Corporate Project Manager for the System/360, including development of the System/360 computer family hardware and the decision to switch computer byte size from 6 to 8 bits. He then managed the initial development of the Operating System/360 software suite: operating system, 16 compilers, communications, and utilities.

He founded the UNC Department of Computer Science in 1964 and chaired it for 20 years. His research there has been in computer architecture, software engineering, and interactive 3-D computer graphics (protein visualization graphics and "virtual reality"). His best-known books are The Mythical Man-Month (1975, 1995); Computer Architecture: Concepts and Evolution (with G.A. Blaauw, 1997); and The Design of Design (2010).

Dr. Brooks has received the National Medal of Technology, the A.M. Turing award of the ACM, the Bower Award and Prize of the Franklin Institute, the John von Neumann Medal of the IEEE, and others. He is a member of the U.S. National Academies of Engineering and of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Academy of Engineering (U.K.) and of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He became a Christian at age 31 and has taught an adult Sunday school class for 35 years. He chaired the Executive Committee for the 1973 Research Triangle Billy Graham Crusade. He and Mrs. Nancy Greenwood Brooks are faculty advisors to a graduate student chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. They have three children and nine grandchildren.

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The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering

• January 1995
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley
• ISBN: 978-0-201-83595-3
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