The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition) | 
 enlarge | Author: Frederick P. Brooks
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  127 reviews
Sales Rank: 4174
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 0201835959
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.1068
UPC: 785342835953
EAN: 9780201835953
ASIN: 0201835959
Publication Date: August 12, 1995
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Amazon.com Review
The classic book on the human elements of software engineering. Software tools and development environments may have changed in the 21 years since the first edition of this book, but the peculiarly nonlinear economies of scale in collaborative work and the nature of individuals and groups has not changed an epsilon. If you write code or depend upon those who do, get this book as soon as possible -- from Amazon.com Books, your library, or anyone else. You (and/or your colleagues) will be forever grateful. Very Highest Recommendation.
Product Description
No book on software project management has been so influential and so timeless as The Mythical Man-Month. Now 20 years after the publication of his book, Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. (best known as the "father of the IBM System 360") revisits his original ideas and develops new thoughts and advice both for readers familiar with his work and for readers discovering it for the first time.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 122 more reviews...
 Software Development September 26, 2008
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering is a book on software project management by Fred Brooks, whose central theme is that "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." This idea is known as Brooks's law, and is presented along with the second-system effect and advocacy of prototyping. The work was first published in 1975, and republished as an anniversary edition in 1995 (ISBN 0-201-83595-9) with the essay "No Silver Bullet" and commentary by the author.
Brooks's observations are based on his experiences at IBM while managing the development of OS/360. He had mistakenly added more workers to a project falling behind schedule. He also made the mistake of asserting that one project -- writing an Algol compiler -- would require six months--regardless of the number of workers involved (it required longer). The tendency for managers to repeat such errors in project development led Brooks to quip that his book is called "The Bible of Software Engineering" because "everybody reads it but nobody does anything about it!"
Excellent & Highly Recommended Book August 17, 2008
I have read this book twice now. Once in college and once again now 5 years later. While I did not get much out of it 5 years ago, now that I have been in the industry a few years, it is a VERY good re-read.
Required Reading For Anyone Serious About Software Development June 19, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
30 Years later this book is still highly relevent. If your project is in trouble, don't add bodies!
seminal classic May 19, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Fred Brooks, the author, is the individual primarily responsible for the IBM System/360, arguably the most successful computer software system built to this point. He is also primarily responsible for the IBM OS/360, which was not as successful. You may find that his frank and honest assessment of why one was successful and one was not provides a map of a right way to develop software and an alert system for what can go wrong. Because of this and the distilled thought and experience present in the book, it would be difficult to find a resource that could better prepare you to develop good software.
 A insightful book about software project development April 22, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have been a software project manager for many years. One of the biggest problem that I encountered was what the author called as "Second System Effect". Some times, architects were unable to discipline himself to avoid over-designing systems in the second project. Their goals were to build perfect systems that would streamline all processes without considering the costs and patience of business groups. To convince others that they were right, they could come up with various reasons that sounded very reasonable. Unfortunately, they were not aware of the cost, time window for product delivery, and etc.
This books provided insightful view about this effect. If our architects could have read this book, they could avoid such problems and became more successful.
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