Talk:The Mythical Man-Month

message: Though Brooks does not outright say it, he clearly implies in the book that he favors contract workers by suggesting that implementors may only be hired once the architecture of the system has been completed (a step that may take several months, during which time, the implementors may have nothing to do). It stands to reason then that if written today, Brooks may have written in favor of outsourcing of software jobs in the United States to places like Russia, India, China, and elsewhere.
...but he did not write in favor of outsourcing.  He wrote in favor of using programmers only when there was work for them to be done.  The book contains no record of his political belief system, nor does he mention off-shore outsourcing specifically.  I don't think this opinion should be assumed even if it 'stands to reason'.  There is a lot of computer company outsourcing of software development within one's own country as well.
The point of the sentense should be that he was in favor of reducing cost of software development.  Discussing his opinions on outsourcing without knowing his opinions on international economics, the effect on customer service or product quality is not necessary here.
: I concur. Project2501a 22:31, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "It stands to reason then that ..." is blatant original research, i.e. an expression of the views of one editor, and the use of "may" shows that it's pure speculation. Not only had out-sourcing not been heard of at the time, but IBM had at the time the world's biggest pool of programmers, and there was always plenty of work for them to do. --Philcha (talk) 07:59, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: From the article...

message: Brooks's observations are based on his experiences at IBM while managing the development of OS/360. To speed development, he mistakenly attempted to add more workers to a project falling behind schedule. He also asserted that writing an Algol compiler would require six months—regardless of the number of workers involved. 
There is either a tense problem here, or a logic problem.  I assume he did not add more workers to a project and assert the compiler would take six months-regardless. Or was he more devious than I thought?  I would think that the assertion was made in the book, long after the mistaken attempt to add workers.  I shall change the text so that a logical progression is reflected in tense and meaning. Cuvtixo 20:08, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  mistakenly developed THEN Asserted? Unclear from the text, needs refinement. 

message: :Image:Mythical man-month (book cover).jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot (talk) 21:52, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Mythical man-month (book cover).jpg

message: The book cover looks rather like a drawing of the La Brea Tar Pits. Can anyone confirm this? Using such an image would be quite consistent with Brook's self-deprecating wit. Philcha (talk) 14:03, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, you are quite right. From the book:
 Cover drawing: C. R. Knight, Mural of the La Brea Tar Pits. Courtesy
 of the George C. Page Museum of La Brea Discoveries, The Natural
 History Museum of Los Angeles County. Cover designer: Diana Coe.
202.125.143.65 (talk) 13:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: We have that image here on Commons --91.64.37.35 (talk) 20:02, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Cover image = [[La Brea Tar Pits]]?

message: Article states: "He had mistakenly added more workers to a project falling behind schedule."
I think this needs rephrasing.  "Mistakenly added more workers" suggests that he meant to do something other than add workers, but added workers by mistake -- as if he meant to order hardware and software, but got people instead.
The true intent is to assert that adding workers was a mistake, in terms of getting the results he needed.  But I assume that the act of adding workers was, in itself, deliberate and not mistaken.
Karl gregory jones (talk) 21:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well it's been about two years, but this sentence was bugging me. I just rephrased it to attempt to be more clear that the workers didn't somehow show up when he misdialed trying to order a pizza. I'm not 100% satisfied with the revision's phrasing, but it seems like a good starting place. Feel free to revise. Zachlipton (talk) 09:36, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mistakenly added more workers 

message: Hi, should this be considered an epistolary book? If not, why?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.162.148.90 (talk) 17:46, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Epistolary would seem to imply a work of fiction, whereas Mythical Man-Month is very much a non-fiction collection of essays on engineering and project management. The essays aren't really in the form of letters either, but are simply just essays. So no, I don't think it would be appropriate to call it a "epistolary book." Zachlipton (talk) 09:29, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Type of book 

message: Implementers may be hired only after the architecture of the system has been completed (a step that may take several months, during which time prematurely-hired implementers may have nothing to do).
He indeed makes that point, but afterwards he clarifies that they can indeed start working in parallel (don't have thee book here so can't provide an acurate citation).
The article is also missing his defense of buying "of the shelf" *modules*/classes (not just finished applications), as well as moving to higher levels (writing "machine code instructions" vs "C++ instructions" vs "using modules").
RainCT (talk) 12:27, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cost lowering 

message: I refactored how the lead handled the editions for several reasons. Basically, with a classic text, you want to explicitly set the context that there are multiple versions, so that a reader already in possession of one of these (without realizing the plurality) recognizes immediately the longer lens. — MaxEnt 18:43, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editions refactor 

message: I have to admit, I knew this book for years (without reading it) and had always read the title as "Man-Moth" (as in man-insect, see Mothman), and after some embarrassment, I did a small check, and I now think this misreading was possibly intended by the author. The book is published the same year as The Mothman Prophecies. Furthermore the follow-up text uses the image of the silver bullet, which is also connected to the paranormal (werewolves). However, as I have no hard evidence for that, I just post it to the talk page. Done. :-) --91.64.37.35 (talk) 19:59, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Just a coincidence; the timing would not work and the term "man-month" had a longer history.  Brooks could not have gotten a book to print in January 1975 from the other June 1975 book.  I think the term "man-month" came from the 19th century, but became common in management circa World War 2.  It's resurgence in the early 1960s included trying to use it on large software efforts where Dr. Brooks found it just did not work well.  The "Silver bullet" is referring to the metaphorical use meaning a simple and quick solution -- commonly a sarcastic label for many technical approaches being touted as a 'fix'.  Dr. Brooks was saying in 1986 that there would not be any programming technique that would provide an order-of-magnitude improvement, and nothing in software that would keep up with Moore's law.     Cheers Markbassett (talk) 18:45, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mythical Moth-Man