"Mythical Man-Month" Supposedly Busted By MIT Startup

An anonymous reader writes "We all know about the Mythical Man-Month, the argument that adding more programmers to a software project just makes it later and later. A Linux startup out of MIT claims to have busted the myth, using an MIT holiday month to hire 20 college student interns to get all their work done and quadrupling its productivity."

Comments

Can it really be true?

[willow]

You mean hiring awesome staff to work on independent projects designed in advance breaks Brooks Law?

Genius! Pat yourself on the back some more. /sarcasm

The Mythical Commenter-Post

[MillionthMonkey]

We also know about the Mythical Commenter-Post, the argument that adding more commenters to a thread just makes the posts dumber and dumber.

Where am I? Digg?

[noisebar]

How did this kind of crap show up on Slashdot?

Re:Totally misses the point

[startled]

They all worked on small projects. Where the mythical man-month applies is in the combined effort on a large, sufficiently complex project.

You're just quibbling about details. If they can get 40 interns to do 40 small problems quickly, they can certainly get 40 interns to do 10 large problems even faster. Just like 9 pregnant women can make a baby in one month. Or they can keep the original 9 month schedule, but pool their efforts to create one super-huge baby.

9 women and the baby

[teknikl]

Is this the same rule as "9 women can't make a baby in 1 month"? I tried to explain the rule to our HR lady and it didn't go over really well with her.

Re:9 women and the baby

[physicsphairy]

"9 women can't make a baby in 1 month"

Ah, yes, 1 baby per month is what you would expect for the classical case, but if we model the baby as a particle in a time box we actually expect 2/9*sin^2(n*pi*t/9) babies.

Some people just don't stop to think about the realism of their model!

Re:Where am I? Digg?

[Dalambertian]

Buried as inaccurate: I really thought this article would be about my monthly reproductive cycle.

Re:!MMM

[HighJack]

So, 198% of game developers are morons?

Re:Totally misses the point

[martin-boundary]

Or they can keep the original 9 month schedule, but pool their efforts to create one super-huge baby.

And that, folks, is what happens when you cross the streams. Never cross the streams!

Re:!MMM

[Tobenisstinky]

Vader: I am disappointed with your apparent lack of progress.
Imperial Deathstar Commander in charge of construction: But my men are already working 24hrs a day!
Vader: I want you to double your efforts!
Imperial Deathstar Commander in charge of construction: You want us to work 48hrs a day?
Vader: Listen, I'm a sadist not a mathematician!

(Mad Magazine's spoof on Return of the Jedi)

Re:!MMM

[raehl]

So, 198% of game developers are morons?

Spoken like a game developer. Anyone with a clue knows that -37% of game developers are morons.

Tiger Woods

[syousef]

Is this the same rule as "9 women can't make a baby in 1 month"? I tried to explain the rule to our HR lady and it didn't go over really well with her.

I thought Tiger Woods was trying to prove that rule wrong.

Re:Disappointing

[Sparklepony]

Clearly the solution to the declining quality of Slashdot's articles is to add more editors.

So tired

[chucklebutte]

I read that as mythical moth man myth busted, and naturally I was like wtf?

Re:MIT holiday month

[asolidvoid]

I'm a beaver, you're a beaver, we are beavers all And when we get together we do the beaver call

E to the U, dU dX, E to the X, dX

Cosine! Secant! Tangent! Sine!

3-point-1-4-1-5-9!

Integral! Radical! mu, DV

Slipstick! Slide rule! M.I.T.!"

Re:!MMM

[Anonymous Coward]

If the commander was a geek he would slow the rotation of the death star so that he could get 48 hour days.

Re:!MMM

[JamesP]

The rest are project managers who know shit about software and are on coke (the white, powdery kind)