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Fred Brooks wins Turing Award (Nobel of Computing)

Posted by jimjag on from the nice-guys-do-win dept.

pjones writes "Many of us know Fred Brooks from his book, Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, and from his coining of the term "computer architecture." He is also famous for Brook's Law which every manager should learn and be forced to repeat daily. So it's good news to report that Brookes has been awarded the Turing Prize from ACM. Brook also managed the development of the IBM 360 Operating System." I also heartily recommend Computer Architecture: Concepts and Evolution which he co-wrote. An excellent look at how the efforts of the '60s influenced later developments.

2 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Turing Test Award by YoJ · · Score: 5
    Jan. 8, 2000 - The ACM has just announced that the emminent computer scientist Fred Brooks has won the Turing Test Award. Alan Turing is the originator of the celebrated "Turing test" in which a judge must distinguish between a computer program and a real human being.

    The actual test took place last week, with Donald Knuth playing the role of the judge. After 10 grueling hours of questioning, Knuth declared that Fred Brooks was virtually indistinguishable from a computer program.

    "It gives me great pleasure to accept this award on behalf of computer scientists everywhere. /* Fix up speech here, add some thank-you's and stuff. Re-check grammar. */," said Dr. Brooks on being presented with his prize. "I have always had a knack for fast arithmetic, and a lifetime of dealing with computers has made me doubt if I was human myself." Some members of the press commented that Dr. Brook's lack of social skills couldn't have hurt his chances either.

    Fred Brooks is the first human to legitimately pass the Turing test. Last month a man known only as HemostheRobotMan claimed to have passed the Turing test, but was later disqualified after he was found using a Palm Pilot hidden in his shorts. Fred Brooks caused a stir when he said, "I need to change my batteries." It turns out he was merely hungry.

    -Nathan Whitehead

  2. The Mythical Man Month by Tim+Behrendsen · · Score: 5

    I remember when I first read MMM about 8 years ago. I was totally blown away. Finally, here was a guy who truly understood and put into words all the problems I had experience while developing software.

    Why is it so hard? Why is there no silver bullet? Why can't you predict how long software will take to develop? Why does adding manpower to a late software project make it later? (yes, he coined that phrase). The book answers these questions and more.

    Probably the biggest insight I took from the book is that the what kills timelines software projects more than anything else is communication overhead. Reducing the communication requirements between groups working on software is the single most important thing you can do during software development.

    If you haven't read this book, get it now (particularly the new 20th anniversary edition, released several years ago). It's not perfect; some of his examples are dated (it's from 20+ years ago) and even he admits some of the ideas have not panned out. But anyone who has developed large software projects with large groups of people will find themselves nodding "Yes! Yes!" more often then not.


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