- Tags:: #📚Books , [[Software architecture|Software Architecture]], [[My management principles values and practices|My Management Principles Values And Practices]] - Author:: [[Frederic p. brooks jr.|Frederic P. Brooks Jr]] - Liked:: 6 - Link:: [The Mythical Man-Month - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month) - Source date:: [[1995-08-02]] - Finished date:: [[2020-08-10]] - Cover:: ![[cover_the_mythical_man_month.png|100]] On the preface to the 20th Anniversary Edition, he says something disappointing about our trade: >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. He also describes a very funny situation he lived in a plane: >The stranger sitting next to me was reading *The Mythical Man-Month*, and I was waiting to see if by word or sign he would react. Finally as we taxied towards the gate, I could wait no longer: "How is that book? Do you recommend it?" "Hmph! Nothing in it I didn't know already." I decided not to introduce myself. (p. 254) As always, I need to quote [[How to read self help|How To Read Self Help]]: ![[How to read self help#^1c6dcd]] Also, another classic, [[No matter how it looks at first its always a people problem|No Matter How It Looks At First Its Always A People Problem]]: >**How can a book written 20 years ago \[It's going to be 50 years in 2025!\] (...) still be relevant**... (...) Hardware and software development, in contrast to manufacturing, remain inherently labor-intensive (...) ***The Mythical Man-Month* is only incidentally about software but primarily abut how people in teams make things.** (p. 254) The title comes from one of the contained essays: "The Mythical Man-Month", although probably the most popular essay ended up being: [[No silver bullet essence and accident in software engineering|No Silver Bullet—Essence and Accident in Software Engineering]]. "The Mythical Man-Month" expression refers to the wrongness of "man-month" measure when planning software: >Cost does indeed vary as the product of the number of men and the number of months. Progress does not. Hence the man-month as a unit for measuring the size of a job is a dangerous and deceptive myth. It implies that men and months are interchangeable. **Men and months are interchangeable commodities only when a task can be partitioned among many workers with no communication among them** (Fig. 2.1). This is true of reaping wheat or picking cotton; it is not even approximately true of systems programming. (...) The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are involved (p. 16-17). A consequence of this is the popular idea that "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later", known as [[brookss-law|Brooks's Law]]. There are some very interesting essays in the book, such as: - "4. Aristocracy, Democracy, and System Design" (related to [[La tiranía del thinker|La Tiranía Del Thinker]]). - "6. Passing the Word" and "8. Why Did the Tower of Babel Fail" ([[Software documentation|Software Documentation]] and proper meetings).