> [ The Mythical Man-Month ] Key takeaway: You'll soon fall victim to the problems identified by this book, even after reading it. Yeah, that pretty much describes all of software development in one stroke. But you should read it anyway (if only to experience the feeling of someone predicting your future before (most of) you were born).
I've always like the MMM but there is also an undercurrent of this being a re-telling of xeno's paradox, and its important to remember the rabbit actually does win. So, adding new bodies does incur cost, but the belief that always adding new bodies always adds more cost than adds impetus to the outcome is not always true. The classic example is "the hump" which was the cost in fuel terms to ship fuel to China, to be…
Re: Books I recommend to my software engineering students
#61I should say that I mis-speak (write) characterising MMM this way, its how its casually talked about. The incremental benefit of adding people can be higher than zero, but less than enough to be worth the cost. It can also be negative which is the core point MMM was making. Can be, is not always. And of course there are problems where it simply cannot alter the trajectory at all (the baby problem)