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Summary: this is a test
Review: test my publisher function
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Summary: A mandatory reading for IT managers. Will save tons of money
Review: This book is a mandatory reading for IT managers. It explains why some of the biggest mistakes and failures in application development projects keep happeninng over and over again. The second chapter is worth its weight in gold. If there's any mandatory reading for IT business and project managers at all, this is it. Keep this book on your desk and you'll save your company tons of money in failed projects.
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Summary: A must read Classic for Software Managers
Review: M3 teaches us the lessons of good software engineering. That the lessons (if not the particulars) are still timely and accurate after 20+ years, shows how far we have to go. After owning this book for years, I still re-read selected passages before each new project. I step in tar from time to time, but the reasons are often contained in M3. If you're preparing to buy a project scheduling package, STOP. Read M3 and learn the lessons.
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Summary: A timeless classic
Review: This is one book I couldn't live (or at least develop software) without. I read it in college, and it didn't make any sense to me. Then I re-read it after about six years of large-scale software development, and it blew me away. Incredibly insightful!
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Summary: An excellent book on software project management
Review: Frederick Brooks explains project management concepts with excellent metaphors and analogies. These metaphores not only make these concepts easy to grasp, they also help in remembering the strategies involved in software development outlined in The Mythical Man-Month. Essays touch on the most critical and important issues involved in software engineering today.
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Summary: Software Engineering methodologies that will endure.
Review: The Mythical Man-Month showed me that many of the methodologies and concepts behind a good software design project have been around for some time and will endure for time to come. A good project team (surgical team), estimation, requirements, design, documentation, and debugging/testing are all critical to a project's success. I have seen many mistakes identified by Mr. Brooks; people thinking that all will go well, systems designed and turned over with no documentation, poor scheduling of projects, no error building in software projects, giving prototypes to the customer and setting wrong expectations. The Mythical Man-Month can give you a solid foundation for software project management, but keep in mind there is no true "silver bullet" to software engineering as stated by Mr. Brooks.
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Summary: An eye opening look into the world of software engineering.
Review: In 1975, Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. wrote a ground breaking insightful book about computer science. He accurately captured someof its more esoteric aspects and relayed them in a colorful narrative. I especially liked his use of the illustrations and quotations as the opening of each chapter. Each was thoughtfully chosen and served to set the tone for the following text. Also entertaining is Brooks' use of the analogy. In the section using the tar pit to describe the struggle faced during large system programming, one comes away saying, "Been there, seen that!" This technique draws you in and makes you want to read on. Readers of this book will find themselves looking at computer science differently. No longer will it be just a science. The philosophical and artistic values will become clear. Brooks' holistic approach may very well sway some readers toward a more pensive view of computer science. At the very least, the reader should come away with a deeper appreciation for software engineering. My only negative commentary would be with the added chapters. While the insight gained over twenty years is useful, it comes off as a little defensive. It's almost as if the passion which so beautifully captured the message in the 1975 version, was spent on defending twenty year old statements. I suspect that the author might argue that he was trying to be systemic and clear. In my opinion this came off as overkill. To borrow an old argument, maybe Dr. Brooks fell victim to the "Second-System Effect" of which he so vividly warns us.
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Summary: I should be chastized for not reading this book before now
Review: I've been working in the software field for just over 10 years now. I generally steer away from computer books that don't deal directly with a particular technology. This book, however, belongs on every shelf in every organization that does software development.
I read the first few chapters about a year ago and then purchased my own copy last week since my co-workers were raving about it. I got through the first few chapters again last night and realized once more the importance of this book. As we see the advent of web-enabled computing, we as software engineers also see the increasing preasure to deliver more functionality in less and less time. I believe the concepts in this book will help organizations and firms to stay focused in their software engineering efforts despite all the hoopla (which I rather enjoy) surrounding the web.
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Summary: Essential for any working software developer
Review: Yes, you should buy the 20th-anniversary edition to get "No Silver Bullets", but I am shocked by how little the book has dated overall. Memory may be cheap nowadays, but the book's core message is timeless: "Adding people to an overdue project makes the project later." One of my mentors says "Every working programmer should reread *The Mythical Man-Month* once a year." He's right.
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Summary: A worthwhile buy although the technology is a bit outdated
Review: I did indeed like this book and certainly would recommend it as reading material for software engineering managers and supervisors. Since it was originally written about 20 years ago, it is a bit out of date but is very interesting. As it is said "...you don't know where you are going unless you know where you have come...". I particularly found the mention of "...implementing a counter in transistors..." definitely showed the age of the book :-). However, It is very direct and not drawn out, my favourite part of the book is the very concise but yet detailed summary of the book. A definite winner...
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