View source for The Mythical Man-Month

The '''''Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering''''' is a book on software engineering and project management by Fred Brooks, whose central theme is that "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later".

This idea is known as Brooks' law, and is presented along with the second-system effect and advocacy of prototyping.

== Summary ==

Brooks' observations are based on his experiences at IBM while managing the development of OS/360.

He had added more programmers to a project falling behind schedule, a decision that he would later conclude had, counter-intuitively, delayed the project even further.

He also made the mistake of asserting that one project -- writing an ALGOL compiler -- would require six months, regardless of the number of workers involved (it required longer).

The book is widely regarded as a classic on the human elements of software engineering.

== See also ==

* [[Computer programming]]
* [[Software development]]

== External links ==

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month The Mythical Man-Month]