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The Mythical Man Month and Other Essays on Software Engineering

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Author: Frederick P. Brooks
Publisher: Addison Wesley
Category: Book

List Price: ~~Ł22.99~~
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Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

24 reviews
Sales Rank: 2619

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 8, 1995
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Condition: Brand New. Shipped from UK Mainland. Delivery is usually 2 - 3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail.

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Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...

1 out of 5 stars

One seminal essay. The rest, repetitive and out of date. January 29, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

For sure the Mythical Man Month was a seminal essay back then. This is worth reading for sure. But the rest of the book is very out of date, and very repetitive. It gets a bit wearing too hearing the old line that hardware has advanced a thousand fold and software hasn't. Er, played any computer games lately?

I'd recommend reading the Mythical Man Month elsewhere if you can find it online and save the time, money, and effort reading the whole book.

Time better spent reading a book on Agile, or XP I would think.

2 out of 5 stars

A bit outdated... August 1, 2007
4 out of 7 found this review helpful

Bought this book on the recommendation of a friend, bought "Debugging the Development Environment" on the recommendation of my boss and would probably recommend neither for todays fluidic environments. Mythical Man Month contains a somewhat outdated view of software development, more suitably apt for an age when only long time development projects for mainframes existed and Web/PC development had not been heard of.

Still relevant in parts to large waterfall based development projects, not helpful with RAD/Extreme and other more modern, small team development methods and probably only a useful read if you are new to project teams and/or have not worked in an IT environment

4 out of 5 stars

Orinal text is brilliant April 3, 2007
0 out of 3 found this review helpful

The 1975 text is genius like essay No Silver Bullets at the end part of the book. At the very final essay is completely different.

At the final pages (207 and onwards) for some reason Mr Brooks felt that he needs to start defending his original text against critics. Fighting with critics is pointless and makes one me only to feel a shamed behalf of Mr Brooks.

5 out of 5 stars

The "absolute must read" in software engineering August 29, 2006
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

I was working for several years in software development, exposed to systems engineering context before reading this book. I think Brooks was so right so long ago that this is "the absolute must read book" on software engineering for anyone interested.

Brooks writes in each chapter about different concerns that affect Software Engineering. The chapters include experiences the author had during his work in IBM back in the 70s. This makes it even more interesting since you actually learn about history of the craft. Note that the main content was written a while ago, but, much of it still applies in today's environment.

This edition includes the original essays and adds new content that comment on the book, the evolution of the field and what the author thinks is still applicable and what not.

As a whole it is very readable and many times fun to read. IMO this is a must read for anyone working in software engineering.

5 out of 5 stars

A genuine classic - a truly seminal work December 17, 2004
20 out of 21 found this review helpful

One of the best books ever written about software development and computing in general.

Yes, it has dated in places but even so it is still very interesting and often incredibly insightful. The title essay (about how throwing additional people at an already late project simply makes it even later) and the essay about Second System Syndrome at particularly good.

It ought to be (but rather sadly is not) a must read for everybody working in IT.