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Brooks has since amended this[1] to say that he really meant it in the context of traditional "waterfall" development, where the first iteration is meticulously

Brooks has since amended this[1] to say that he really meant it in the context of traditional "waterfall" development, where the first iteration is meticulously planned and designed as a whole system before any code is written at all. Rapid, iterative prototyping, followed by refactoring, is a perfectly reasonable approach today. No need to create a fresh repository and rewrite all code from scratch. David Heinemeier Hanssen, creator of Rails and a big advocate of building working code as early as possible, wasn't even born in 1975 when the mythical man-month was written. Linus Torvalds was a (presumably) plucky 6-year-old. Brooks wrote that book for an audience that would have known waterfall as the only way. [1] https://wiki.c2.com/?PlanToThrowOneAway https://wiki.c2.com/?PlanToThrowOneAway

hyperpallium2 6y ago
wikiwiki seems to be having trouble moving to github. Here's wayback https://web.archive.org/web/20190821162524/https://wiki.c2.com/?PlanToThrowOneAway https://web.archive.org/web/20190821162524/https://wiki.c2.c... And the bit you referenced: "This I now perceived to be wrong, not because it is too radical, but because it is too simplistic. The biggest mistake in the 'Build one to throw away' concept is that it implicitly assumes the classical sequential or waterfall model of software construction." You don't have to throw everything away. Like reusing libraries, you can reuse your modules, or whatever code you like. It's the part that is a tangled Gordian Knot that is easier to cut than meticulously unravel. "Starting with a clean slate" is a common idea in many contexts. One very similar to code is writing. You can hack and edit, but a fresh draft is easier (and safer) for fundamental conceptual and structural changes. BTW "Waterfall" was a parody of processes, though the conceptual aspects (requirements vs specifications etc) are useful. People then were just as intelligent as today. Maybe more.
- titanomachy 6y ago
  I don't see waterfall as a product of limited intelligence but rather limited tools and history. It's natural that early software engineers would generalize processes from mechanical and chemical engineering, especially given the cost of iteration with early software tools.

hyperpallium2 6y ago

wikiwiki seems to be having trouble moving to github. Here's wayback https://web.archive.org/web/20190821162524/https://wiki.c2.com/?PlanToThrowOneAway https://web.archive.org/web/20190821162524/https://wiki.c2.c... And the bit you referenced: "This I now perceived to be wrong, not because it is too radical, but because it is too simplistic. The biggest mistake in the 'Build one to throw away' concept is that it implicitly assumes the classical sequential or waterfall model of software construction." You don't have to throw everything away. Like reusing libraries, you can reuse your modules, or whatever code you like. It's the part that is a tangled Gordian Knot that is easier to cut than meticulously unravel. "Starting with a clean slate" is a common idea in many contexts. One very similar to code is writing. You can hack and edit, but a fresh draft is easier (and safer) for fundamental conceptual and structural changes. BTW "Waterfall" was a parody of processes, though the conceptual aspects (requirements vs specifications etc) are useful. People then were just as intelligent as today. Maybe more.

titanomachy 6y ago
I don't see waterfall as a product of limited intelligence but rather limited tools and history. It's natural that early software engineers would generalize processes from mechanical and chemical engineering, especially given the cost of iteration with early software tools.