Talk:Brooks's law

message: The wording of the section ("Some would claim") irks me. Is it worthy of a weasel-word tag or a citation/reference needed one? 85.216.249.92 15:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:WEASEL would seem to support your irk. However, someone appears to have edited that out, and now we have what appears to be a factual claim. The section might still need some work. --Teratornis 17:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The claim is misleading.  The Cathedral and the Bazaar suggests that Brooks's Law really only applies to the core developer group, and adding a large number of minor contributors does not cause a significant productivity penalty.  (Of course, Raymond asserts this as fact without providing any evidence.) --70.92.156.183 04:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Open Source Software Development 

message: This article was marked in December 2007 as "unreferenced"; however, it cites the main book on the subject ("The Mythical Man Month", by Fred Brooks himself), and also other articles. What is missing? It's safe (or proper) to remove the "unreferenced" warning? CarlosRibeiro (talk) 22:04, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: We need secondary sources. I've updated the tag. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:17, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've heavily revised the article, and included some references that I believe are authoritative. Can the warning be removed now? CarlosRibeiro (talk) 13:52, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes. Thanks for your work on this! Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:56, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  References/Citations 

message: I rewrote the section on "Open Source", adding explicit citations of Eric Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" paper that point to the specific chapter that is posted online. I don't know if the citations were added "the right way". Please feel free to correct it, I'll be glad to learn how to do it. CarlosRibeiro (talk) 23:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the section on "commodities" for now, pending better referencing. Raymond certainly said it, but he's a primary source for the claim. I haven't seen it seriously argued. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:56, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

text: I personally suggest removing the section. I think it doesn't say anything which hasn't been said before it. Cristan (talk) 14:01, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brooks's Law and Open Source 

message: > The number of different communication channels increases along with the square of the number of people; doubling the number of people results in four times as many different conversations.
This is not precisely correct.  For N people, there are C(N,2) different communication channels, and not N^2 channels.  Doubling the number of people results in C(2N,2) communication channels, or an increase in "C(2N/2) / C(N/2)" times as many conversations.
For instance, with four people, there are C(4,2) = 6 communication channels.  Doubleing four people to eight results in C(8,2) = 28 communication channels.
This is less than a squared increase in the number of people.  -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.0.193.29 (talk) 20:16, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of different communication channels 

message: Currently the article states:
However the source (IBM:continuous integration agile development (a soft sell document for an IBM software product to help automate continuous integration))  does not support that support that statement.
The only explicit mention of communicate is 
* "It also provides an easier way to communicate the functionality of a component, which can be valuable for the pair programming and "code review" that is common in agile development."
A less explicit statement
* "One of the things that this technique provides is the ability to deliver smaller, functional releases that are built and tested at many dates along the project schedule."
but this does not acknowledge if Brooks' law exists within agile development groups or between multiple agile groups.
Indeed at the end of the paper there is a section called "Collaboration" and it is silent on whether this method helps to mitigate Brooks' law either explicitly or implicitly.
-- PBS (talk) 11:05, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  The modern practices... 

message: I believe the law should be cited literally here as it is written in the Mythical Man Month, not a close paraphrase. It would be "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later."   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.117.217.200 (talk) 16:48, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  literal text 

message: What is an "incremental person"?
Wainstead (talk) 16:53, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incremental person