Frederick P. Brooks Jr. > Quotes

“Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.”
― Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

“All programmers are optimists”
― Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

“The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures.”
― Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

“The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.”
― Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

“A basic principle of data processing teaches the folly of trying to maintain independent files in synchonism.”
― Frederick P. Brooks Jr., The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition

“A baseball manager recognizes a nonphysical talent, hustle, as an essential gift of great players and great teams. It is the characteristic of running faster than necessary, moving sooner than necessary, trying harder than necessary. It is essential for great programming teams, too.”
― Frederick P. Brooks Jr., The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, 20th Anniversary Edition

“Adding manpower to a late software project, makes it later.”
― Frederick P. Brooks Jr., The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition

“The conclusion is simple: if a 200-man project has 25 managers who are the most competent and experienced programmers,
fire the 175 troops and put the managers back to programming.”
― Frederick P. Brooks Jr.