Pretty sure waterfall was never state of the art, rather an example of what not to do [0]. It's often held up as a straw man argument in promoting 'agile'. Broo

Pretty sure waterfall was never state of the art, rather an example of what not to do [0]. It's often held up as a straw man argument in promoting 'agile'. Brooks' book emphasises prototyping, and 'build one to throw away, you will anyway' which isn't 'waterfall'. Brooks' book also clearly demonstrates that applying a dumb formula derived from the number of programmers doesn't predict the output, and using such a formula to estimate a project's timeline doesn't positively affect the project's outcome. It's main argument is that programmers added late to a project will actually cause it to take even longer to complete. Brooks' book is remarkable - a lot of programming lore and culture originates there or is popularized by it. I'd compare it to casablanca or citizen kane rather than dismiss it out of hand. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_development