August 1995
Beginner
336 pages
6h 4m
English
book
Mythical Man-Month, The: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition
by Frederick P. Brooks
Content preview from Mythical Man-Month, The: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition
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Preface to the 20th Anniversary Edition
To my surprise and delight, The Mythical Man-Month continues to be popular after 20 years. Over 250,000 copies are in print. People often ask which of the opinions and recommendations set forth in 1975 I still hold, and which have changed, and how. Whereas I have from time to time addressed that question in lectures, I have long wanted to essay it in writing.
Peter Gordon, now a Publishing Partner at Addison-Wesley, has been working with me patiently and helpfully since 1980. He proposed that we prepare an Anniversary Edition. We decided not to revise the original, but to reprint it untouched (except for trivial corrections) and to augment it with more current thoughts.
Chapter 16 reprints "No Silver Bullet: ...