The Mythical Man-Month Ch 1 - 3

Summary

 

Chapter 1 – The Tar Pit – this chapter identifies the craft of system programming and the joys and woes inherent in it. The chapter first talks about the evolution of programming systems and how it usually goes from being a simple program to being a system and an actual product. It then goes to explain that programming is so much fun mainly because it gratifies creative longings built deep within us and delights sensibilities we have in common with all men. However, there are also drawbacks; like the fact that we must perform perfectly in order for our program to work, and that once programs are done they seem to be obsolete.

Chapter 2 – The Mythical Man-Month – this chapter is about the cause for most project failures: time. The chapter explains different reasons as why it is that way, including the over optimism of programmers, the man-month myth, constraints of system tests, pressure from customer, and using more manpower as a solution to being behind schedule.

Chapter 3 – The Surgical Team – this chapter discusses the problem of small teams of few sharp people vs. big teams where not everybody is super sharp. The problem is that for really large systems you need a big team. Mills propose a system in where few minds are involved in design and construction but many hands are brought to bear. The chapter then goes on explaining this system more in detail specifying the roles of each member, 10 in total. However, how to scale this up? Well, with separate techniques that will be talk about in other chapters.

Discussion

The chapters of the book were interesting; however, I feel like we didn’t get to talk about the “meat” of anything. I would like to read the next chapters and see what else the author has to say. When he discusses the small vs big teams in software design I think he has a good point about the few bright minds and everybody else just helping. In general, I think it is mostly like that; the brains of a project are always a few and the rest are helping with wathever they can to facilitate the process.