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 enlarge | Author: Frederick P. Brooks
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy Used: $19.15
You Save: $20.84 (52%)
New (33) Used (68) Collectible (1) from $19.15
Avg. Customer Rating:  126 reviews
Sales Rank: 6976
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
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Essential Reading for beginner, intermediate and advanced PMs November 19, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Essential Reading for Project/Program Managers at all levels. This book exposes the shortcomings of the purely quantitative software engineering approach in building software applications and systems. While data driven risk management, decision system is here to stay where PMs use a variety of metrics to measure, control and report on the progress of a particular project, process or operation - the book explains why that approach alone is no substitute for the human factor...
Buy it as a gift for your Project Manager October 12, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
As a developer, get this book for your boss.
Maybe he will understand why he can't assign Richie and Carolina tomorrow to your team so you can deliver that COM API you promised for the day after tomorrow and you could not finish it because you were stuck in the tar pit of your old legacy app, even after you explained to him there is no silver-bullet and you are plannning to throw one away.
Best regards,
A Must Read If You're Interested In Software Engineering September 25, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is a classic on Software Engineering and one of the most often quoted ones. Fred Brooks experienced first hand the development of a huge-scale software development project, the IBM/360, and has learned valuable lessons which he shares in the book. If you're interested in computer science history you will enjoy the description of the pains and joys of software development some decades ago. The article "No Silver Bullet" included at the end of the book is in my opinion the best essay on Software Engineering ever.
Lean Computing September 6, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The philosophy of this book is very similar to lean thinking in that:
a.The more hands touching the software, the more time built into the process - partitioning a task builds in extra time (training and communication).
b.Advocates employee ownership relative to the specific work that they do.
c.Speaks to flow (appropriate people touching the product at the correct time) and teamwork (rewards, interaction and stimulation along with team fusion)
d.Speaks to a system of incremental building (improvements)
e.Value is focused on the customer ("happy user" test)
f.Willingness to accept better ideas/processes
g.Team approach to creating value rather than seeking credit; delegating power down and allowing teams to own the process - "...the quality of the people on a project, and their organization and management, are much more important factors in success than are the tools they use or the technical approaches they take."
h.Interchangeable talent
i.Honesty and encouragement in disclosing status
j.Milestone reports (value-added steps)
 Someone please publish an updated version August 11, 2007
4 out of 19 found this review helpful
Both Dr. Brooks' original and anniversary book is outdated. The original 1975 was written based on experiences in the 60's and 70's while the 1995 anniversary edition is just a reprint along with chapters/articles written in the late 80's and early 90's. As good and fun-reading as classics are, Software Engineering is not like Archeology and Anthropology where past tools and technology are intently studied and cherished. Dr. Brooks time is long gone and he even admits it; so are the experiences he has in the book. Focus should be placed on more current books that take into account things like object-oriented programming, UML, extreme programming, class-generation software (e.g Microsoft Visio) and other modern tool... which are before the time of the Mythical man-month books. Despite some good information in the book I would not spend much time on it.
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