How much of the Mythical Man Month still applies? [closed]

Answer 1

The social factors are still present, because humans are still essentially the same beasts we were 50 years ago.

The technical examples are almost completely obsolete, and only make sense when you think about the 0.034 MIPS System/360 of 1964. When you've only got 8 KB of memory, suggesting that the user should be responsible for handling leap years, instead of wasting 26 bytes of system memory (as Brooks did) made sense, but today it seems downright silly. I don't know any system that small today -- your telephone is thousands of times more powerful than the most powerful OS/360 system. Today we know a lot more about usability and human-computer interaction, and making the user responsible for that category of thing is just crazy.

Answer 2

The two that stick out in my mind: "version 2" still applies and so does "adding more people not necessarily faster".

Spolsky discusses "version 2" in his own way. I do not recall if he specifically links to MMM but it is very similar in concept.

Communication has become a lot more efficient than when MMM was identified, however, I think it's all proportional. It takes a lot more to make software production ready than it did when MMM was written.

Someone said that everything in computer science was discovered in 1960 something and everything since then has been derivative.

Answer 3

I consider this to be one of the "must read" books for anyone who wants to understand the software development process.

Answer 4

One programmer can now write more code/build more software than one programmer could back then, but adding the second developer is not going to produce twice as much.

If/when I get on a project with good design documentation and processes in place, I'll let you know if that improves anything.

Answer 5

All of it. The simple fact is that software projects are nontrivial; we build our own domain knowledge, really, directly into our solutions. Domain knowledge transfer is costly, both for the transferrer and for the transferee; this has not changed. And I, for one, believe it never will, no matter what the practices and tools used. Things may get marginally better, but the simple fact is that teaching and learning are both expensive and difficult things, and there's just no way to avoid them.

Answer 6

Isn't this kind of like asking if Sun Tzu's Art of War is still applicable to warfare since we have modern equipment?