The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.

[Book Review Team]

<pre>Author/s : Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
Publisher : Addison Wesley
Category : Other
Review by : Mark A. Herschberg
Rating : 7 horseshoes</pre>
This book is a classic in the field of software engineering. I consider it a must read. I first read the book for MIT's 6.033 class, but have read it again twice since then. The book is an easy read, broken into a number of small chapters. Fred Brooks describes his experiences and lessons from working on the IBM 360 project.
The chapters themselves vary in usefulness. There are some timeless pieces, such as The Mythical Man-Month, The Second System Effect, and No Silver Bullet. Every engineer should understand these terms. Other topics can be a bit dated, but still teach some meta-ideas which can value even today.
Brooks cuts through the general technological optimism, as true today as it was then, and discusses the issues which really matter in software development. He focuses on the project-level issues which causes software efforts to fail.
If possible, get the 20th anniversary edition. It includes 4 more chapters, as well as a summary of points.
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