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In your first paragraph you say that Brooks was right in his prediction. In your second you say you agree with the author that "open-source libraries and online

In your first paragraph you say that Brooks was right in his prediction. In your second you say you agree with the author that "open-source libraries and online forums, automated testing, and garbage collection" were the biggest gains. But those first two were the counter-examples to Brooks according to the author. So where do you actually disagree with the author? You don't think the gains from these were substantial enough? Also the author makes a clear argument for why functional programming is, from a complexity perspective, something entirely different from mere "linguistic features". And a "silver bullet" according to Brooks is something that might take a decade to show full impact.

marcosdumay 7y ago
A silver bullet can not be something that is itself on the same order of complexity and labor demand that the code it is helping. Those are just a ton of lead bullets, and Brooks does have different predictions for those ones.
pron 7y ago
> But those first two were the counter-examples to Brooks according to the author. They are not. > So where do you actually disagree with the author? You don't think the gains from these were substantial enough? I think that 1. the collective gains might have been substantial but not 10x, and 2. the very ideas proposed by the author as being a silver bullet are not even among those in the first group. > Also the author makes a clear argument for why functional programming is, from a complexity perspective, something entirely different from mere "linguistic features". And a "silver bullet" according to Brooks is something that might take a decade to show full impact. When I was in university, Haskell was all the rage. People were saying how in some years we'll all be programming in it or in a similar language. That was in 1998 or 1999. Functional programming in general has been well known, and taught for many decades. I'm not saying it's particularly bad, and maybe it could even have a small positive effect, but saying it's a 10x silver bullet at this point sounds delusional. If Brooks was wrong and there is a silver bullet, I very much doubt it's something we've known about, and tried again and again, in various forms, for decades.
alasdair_ 7y ago
Brooks defines a silver bullet as having a more than 10X productivity gain. None of "open-source libraries and online forums, automated testing, and garbage collection" have led to a documented 10X improvement in productivity by themselves, so they are not silver bullets.

marcosdumay 7y ago

A silver bullet can not be something that is itself on the same order of complexity and labor demand that the code it is helping. Those are just a ton of lead bullets, and Brooks does have different predictions for those ones.

pron 7y ago

> But those first two were the counter-examples to Brooks according to the author. They are not. > So where do you actually disagree with the author? You don't think the gains from these were substantial enough? I think that 1. the collective gains might have been substantial but not 10x, and 2. the very ideas proposed by the author as being a silver bullet are not even among those in the first group. > Also the author makes a clear argument for why functional programming is, from a complexity perspective, something entirely different from mere "linguistic features". And a "silver bullet" according to Brooks is something that might take a decade to show full impact. When I was in university, Haskell was all the rage. People were saying how in some years we'll all be programming in it or in a similar language. That was in 1998 or 1999. Functional programming in general has been well known, and taught for many decades. I'm not saying it's particularly bad, and maybe it could even have a small positive effect, but saying it's a 10x silver bullet at this point sounds delusional. If Brooks was wrong and there is a silver bullet, I very much doubt it's something we've known about, and tried again and again, in various forms, for decades.

alasdair_ 7y ago

Brooks defines a silver bullet as having a more than 10X productivity gain. None of "open-source libraries and online forums, automated testing, and garbage collection" have led to a documented 10X improvement in productivity by themselves, so they are not silver bullets.