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I ordered The Mythical Man-Month a year or two ago. This is something of a blasphemous statement on Hacker News, but for me the book was a letdown. It felt like
by BrandonM 15y ago
I ordered The Mythical Man-Month a year or two ago. This is something of a blasphemous statement on Hacker News, but for me the book was a letdown. It felt like a rehash of ideas that I already knew from reading Paul Graham's essays, other technical blogs, and comments on Hacker News.
The reality, of course, is that the book was so spot-on and insightful that many of its ideas have simply been absorbed into the way we approach software development. It seems so common sense today that people don't even cite an idea stolen from TMMM.
Unfortunately, this meant that nothing in the book was new to me, and reading it was rather dull. Because of that, if you've spent much time following the tech community, my recommendation is to prioritize reading TMMM below many of your other suggestions.