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While Brooks' book is nominally about software processes, in my career of over 40 years, I found it to be applicable to just about every engineering discipline
by sizzzzlerz 3y ago
While Brooks' book is nominally about software processes, in my career of over 40 years, I found it to be applicable to just about every engineering discipline to which I played a part. I read this book back in the 70's and then every 10 years or so and I never failed to learn something new from it. I just wish the managers and companies I worked for would have applied these lessons.
- taeric 3y agoI'm a bit of a broken record on the idea, but I'm fairly convinced that much of what we think is unique to software is not that unique. Coordinating work with people is hard, pretty much period.
- nxobject 3y agoI think we forget how much software engineering should be influenced by other engineering disciplines, rather than the other way around – I think there are plenty of cautionary tales of "move fast, break things" physical things startups.
- dredmorbius 3y agoSystems in general have similarities. Human organisations, whether governmental, commercial, educational, religious, military, charitable, social, or any other principle focus, tend to have and exhibit strongly similar patterns. There is of course also domain-specific knowledge, but even much of that almost always proves more general on closer examination, with much of the distinction being of labeling and language rather than behaviour and phenomena.
- kwertyoowiyop 3y agoEvery engineer would benefit from it too.
- RandallBrown 3y agoYup, this book is always in the must read list for software developers but I've barely met any product/project/program managers that have even heard of it. They're often the people that would gain the most insight from the topics in the book.