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The Mythical Man-Month Revisited
jpkunst writes "Ed Willis, over at O'Reilly's ONLamp.com, gives his varied reactions to Fred Brooks' classic The Mythical Man-Month, after 'having finally read it in its entirety'. '[...] simultaneously you can see just how much the field has changed since the original writing and just how much has stayed stubbornly the same.'"
What, like a manstrual cycle?
Since all the blather about "internet time" in the intervening years, I'm surprised they didn't re-release it under a new title:
The Mythical Man-Week.
Have you read my blog lately?
My company used to have a lot of problems with the mythical man month... that is until we switched to metric month.
We've found that we get a lot more accomplished by switching to the 10 day work week and 10 hour work days.
Now, if only Swatch would come out with a metric time piece.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
Well done indeed:
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Regarding source code documentation:
"The most serious objection is the increase in the size of the source code that must be stored. As the discipline moves more and more toward on-line storage of source code, this has become a growing consideration. I find myself being briefer in comments to an APL program, which will live on disk, then on a PL/I one that I will store as cards."
For who among us is this not true? Honestly, you just can't shut me up on cards.
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Definitely worth a read. To coin a phrase: LOL.
The Army reading list
Especially when the developer is green in whatever industry they're developing to, the users can kill the usability of an app by nitpicking it to death--there is no real overall vision.
So... if the developer tries to do something in a field that he has no exposure to, and the users complain that he's missed the point, its somehow their fault? Hmm... whatever.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
But did he learn anything?
I told my non-techie boss to read it before asking me to do stuff
I asked my boss too, telling him it should not take more than an hour to read it. He said he has no time and told his two secretaries to read it and come back in half an hour with a recapitulation of it.
Since one human year equals seven dog years, couldn't we save time while keeping the team size small by hiring dogs as developers?
It warms my heart to see MBA's are getting real training. I hope some day to have to revise my targets of derision, and (gasp) perhaps raise my level of esteem of them above household vermin.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I add to that and say that if you try, you'll find yourself supporting 9 times more baby than you planned for.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
I first read this as "Mythical Man Moth"
So I was thinking Arthur from "The Tick" was coming back.
Imagine my dissappointment...
Mythical Man-Month A Myth. Nine women bear a child in one month through genetic engineering. When asked, the lead researcher shrugged and replied, "We just wanted to piss Fred Brooks off."
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
I used to be the head IT guy at Nettwerk Records, home of Sarah McLachlan and Bare Naked Ladies, Dido, etc., and my office was right over the main "dubbing station".
There was a practice of leaving the audio up for all of the radio dubs that were made for each single, so that the glassy-eyed intern could ensure that it was recorded properly. This was done literally thousands of times... one for each major and minor radio station in North America. For each song that was released. And each interview/soundbite. All during the Lilith Fair days. Joy.
Unfortunately, the interns didn't last too long in this job, as they quickly got very bored of it, so there would be a new one every day or two... each one initially VERY excited about working with "Sarah!", so they'd crank the volume.
This drove me nuts. Almost literally. I'm an older Van Halen and Ozzie fan, and cannot stand to listen to Sarah's stuff more than once or twice... it's not my cup-O-tea. That being said, this was like some insane water torture for me.
It really hit home when I was in to see the dentist a few years back, and he was doing a routine examination on me, and he started to get really concerned. "Are you in pain? There doesn't look like there should be any pain, but you're all tense and flinching... what's up?"
It was at that point that I realized that the receptionist was a HUGE Sarah fan, and was playing Sarah's just released Mirrorball compilation in its entirety... that I'd already heard almost infinitely.
So, I spilled the beans to the doc, and he laughed, got up, went to the CD player, and popped in some classic VH. I loosened right up, almost to the point of going to sleep, I was so relaxed.
The next time I went in to see him, sure enough, Sarah was back on the CD player, but on seeing me, the receptionist killed it and popped in some Stevie Ray Vaughn, and all was well. They'd actually made a note in the book that said "absolutely NO SARAH while he's here".
That dentist has my business for LIFE now, let me tell you!
I guess what I find interesting is that such exposure to audio/video stimulus repeatedly can have big impacts on you... without even really knowing it. I wasn't actually consciously aware of my "audio rage" until it was pointed out to me.
It's almost like it's audio/visual repetitive stress injury or something.
Weird.
$0.02 (CDN)
There was an old rule of thumb (pre Brooks).
If one programmer can do it in one year, two programmers can do it in two years.