
Fred Brooks retires - cperciva
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2016/03/founding-uncs-computer-science-department-was-an-experiment-but-it-paid-off-for-fred-brooks
======
ericboggs
I worked part-time in desktop support at Sitterson Hall, home of the UNC
Computer Science program, when I was an undergrad in the late 90s / early
2000s. My team supported Windows, hardware, printers, etc. I distinctly
remember closing help tickets for Prof Brooks (and Matt Cutts while he was a
PhD student).

My fellow undergrad tech support doofuses and I knew that Prof Brooks was a
god and thus walked on eggshells when we were around him...which we quickly
learned was totally unnecessary. He was incredibly friendly, gracious, and
encouraging. A true Tar Heel.

Congrats to Prof Brooks.

~~~
strlen
Can't help, but ask this: did Prof Brooks ever comment on progress/deadlines
for the tickets he opened?

~~~
dredmorbius
Or request more manpower...

------
officialchicken
I think reading this book[1] is even more important than learning to use a
keyboard (and mouse) with the intention of creating software or any complex
system.

Knowing your limits is one thing, but understanding why/how they are being
manipulated by outside forces (e.g. overestimating ability) is another. And
how to counter those forces is also included in these pages.

Thank's for the sanity and well-managed project advice Fred!

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-
Engineerin...](http://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineering-
Anniversary/dp/0201835959)

~~~
cosinetau
Not sure if this is complete:

[https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/greatworks/mythical.pdf](https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/greatworks/mythical.pdf)

------
henrik_w
Most people associate "The Mythical Man-Month" with Brooks’s law: adding
people to a late project makes it later. For me, the best part of it is one
page at the end of chapter one, entitled The Joys of the Craft.

It is excellent on what makes programming so great:
[http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-
coding/](http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-coding/)

~~~
agumonkey
The sad part is how many managers aren't aware of this.

~~~
cema
Or, more likely, they simply don't care.

~~~
agumonkey
In a way yes, but they do care about time to completion, even a lazy, cheat-
first manager would love to have that. Then, all things considered it seems
easier to implement a 'put more resources, fake some numbers, notify client of
delays (just like every other projects so they won't rant that much)'

------
jgrahamc

        “Here’s Fred Brooks, this giant. I mean — made IBM, adviser 
        to presidents, all this stuff. And this lady is looking for 
        directions, so he walks with her out to the street and down 
        the street to show her where she needs to go,” Bishop said.
    

Isn't it sad that this was deemed even worth reporting? Why assume someone
like Fred Brooks wouldn't do that?

~~~
Spooky23
The point is that he is a humble man. Not something you see every day for
someone that well known and respected.

~~~
goldenkey
"and respected" Seems perverse to conflate uppityness with being respected.
I'd say it's quite the inverse.

~~~
Spooky23
Good point... I bungled my point :).

I think there is a "celebrity" version where external folks have a great deal
of respect for the narrative/persona that they see publicly. A lot of times
the "real story" is that the guy is a walking shitshow from the perspective of
the folks around him.

Then you have the rare folks who are respected in the wider world and by their
peers.

------
tarvaina
If UNC had hired 612 people instead of him, we would have had the job done in
a month!

------
sizzzzlerz
The MMM was first published in 1975. I began working in the industry in 1978
and first read his book around then. Thirty-eight years later, we still try to
fix late programs by adding people. Brooks wrote the seminal, magnificent book
on project management but he's still a voice, crying in the wilderness.

~~~
vram22
>Thirty-eight years later, we still try to fix late programs by adding people.

How true.

>Brooks wrote the seminal, magnificent book on project management but he's
still a voice, crying in the wilderness.

But he's not the only voice any more. I'm sure there are some others, but one
I know of is Rich Hickey. Okay, not for the exact same topic as Brooks, but a
closely related one, IMO. Coincidentally, I had blogged about a video of him
talking at a Clojure meet just yesterday (after watching it for the second
time in some months, because I found it good). The topic is not Clojure, it's
what he calls (jokingly) Hammock-Driven Development; IOW, thinking about, and
analyzing enough, and deeply enough, your work [1], up front, because that is
the better way and actually _saves costs_ over the project lifetime (proven by
studies, such as Capers Jones [2] et al). Here's the blog post, with a link to
the video:

[http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2016/03/tech-video-rich-hickey-
ham...](http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2016/03/tech-video-rich-hickey-hammock-
driven.html)

or you can watch the video directly here:

[1] And what he recommends is not the waterfall model or UML, BTW. In fact, he
explicitly mentions and does not recommend them. But goes on to say, don't
throw the baby out with the bathwater. See the video to get the rest.

[2]:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capers_Jones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capers_Jones)

[http://namcookanalytics.com/about/](http://namcookanalytics.com/about/)

Edit: I like this Capers Jones quote:

"High-quality software is not expensive. High-quality software is faster and
cheaper to build and maintain than low-quality software, from initial
development all the way through total cost of ownership."[4]

------
PaulRobinson
He was in attendance at the Turing 100 conference a few years back -
[http://curation.cs.manchester.ac.uk/Turing100/www.turing100....](http://curation.cs.manchester.ac.uk/Turing100/www.turing100.manchester.ac.uk/?man=true)
\- which I was fortunate enough to attend.

It was full of great names. Roger Penrose, Donald Knuth, Gary Kasparov, Vint
Cerf, Tony Hoare, etc.

Brooks was one of the speakers who seemed really interested in talking to
delegates in coffee breaks and sharing stories. A lovely man, and his
retirement is well deserved. He has shaped the industry more than any other
attendee, even if others may have contributed more to the science, so to
speak.

~~~
gedrap
One of the things I've missed while I was an undergrad at Manchester and
really regret it :(

------
superdude264
Just last Spring, he lent me his copy of "What Color is Your Parachute" and
invited me into his office to discuss two job offers I was contemplating. He
did all this after he passed by the CS library and saw me looking for
something.

------
oneeyedpigeon
Macbook Air - check. Tie and cardigan - check. Is Fred Brooks one of the
original hipsters? ;-)

~~~
golergka
The term "hipster" originated in 1930s, so I doubt it

~~~
topherjaynes
Fred Brooks was born in 1931. Seems like they originated at the same time

------
ScottBurson
Brooks' famous essay "No Silver Bullet" is worth a (re-)read [0]. I still
think AI and Automatic Programming will eventually change the face of software
development in a bigger way than Brooks thinks possible; but I can't tell you
when it will happen.

[0] [http://worrydream.com/refs/Brooks-
NoSilverBullet.pdf](http://worrydream.com/refs/Brooks-NoSilverBullet.pdf)

~~~
vram22
Agreed; after just now reviewing the Wikipedia article for The Mythical Man-
Month [1], I was going to mention the No Silver Bullets point, which, IIRC, he
added in the 25th anniversary edition of the MMM book.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-
Month](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month)

------
tiernano
> Although Brooks officially retired in 2015, Jeffay said he is still active
> in the department. “He says ‘I didn’t retire. I just went off the payroll,’”
> Jeffay said.

I like that.

------
AKrumbach
I have, sitting at my elbow _right now_ , a copy of Mythical Man-Month, as
part of a mini-bookshelf of the ten books I found most influential in my
career / wish to share with my co-workers.

[For the curious:
[http://i.imgur.com/CGv9PGc.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/CGv9PGc.jpg) ]

~~~
mindcrime
Likewise, I have _The Design of Design_ in a stack of "Read Soon" books right
by my bed. And I think _The Mythical Man Month_ may be overdue for a re-read
as well.

[http://imgur.com/a/AeZr4](http://imgur.com/a/AeZr4)

------
cwingrav
I had an opportunity to spend a day with him and his VR research team a few
years back. Very exciting. Insightful. I loved his contributions to Software
Engineering, but few know how much he impacted Virtual Reality as well!

------
mathattack
The Mythical Man Month [0] hit me at a perfect time - I was working at a
company that was obsessed with tracking everything in man-months without
considering who was doing the work, or when they were added. The book gave me
the academic support to back my intuition when I would push back on
management.

Now on the other side, I take his advice in There is No Silver Bullet [1] very
seriously. Improving software engineering is a slog, not a shiny buzzword.

My favorite quote [2] of his "The most important single decision I ever made
was to change the IBM 360 series from a 6-bit byte to an 8-bit byte, thereby
enabling the use of lowercase letters. That change propagated everywhere."

I guess the one surprising thing for me was that he was still actively
working. Even 15 years ago I thought of him as a grand dean from a past
generation. Great to see him stay so vibrant for so long.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-
Month](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Brooks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Brooks)

------
svec
I saw him speak on "A Personal History of Computers" last year and wrote about
it here: [http://chrissvec.com/fred-brooks-talk-a-personal-history-
of-...](http://chrissvec.com/fred-brooks-talk-a-personal-history-of-
computers/)

Brooks's overview: "I fell in love with computers at age 13, in 1944 when
Aiken (architect) and IBM (engineers) unveiled the Harvard Mark I, the first
American automatic computer. A half-generation behind the pioneers, I have
known many of them. So this abbreviated history is personal in two senses: it
is primarily about the people rather than the technology, and it
disproportionally emphasizes the parts I know personally."

It was a great talk covering his whole career. A video of the same talk is
here: [http://www.heidelberg-laureate-
forum.org/blog/video/lecture-...](http://www.heidelberg-laureate-
forum.org/blog/video/lecture-tuesday-august-25-2015-fred-brooks/)

------
tarheelredsox
Had Fred for Advance Computer Architecture back in 89 when he was writing his
book. Great class and fantastic prof, loved the anecdotes and details on why
certain decisions were made for various iconic computer systems. Oddly enough
my mother had him as an advisor when she was in grad school working on masters
#2.

------
girkyturkey
Wow, this man is a true hero. What a humble, outstanding man that created this
from the ground up! Thank you Fred for everything that you have done. It's
great to see that fame does not change everyone.

------
crdoconnor
It's sad that his message never really filtered through. I've worked at more
places that thought you could speed up project development by throwing
developers at it than otherwise.

------
zabouti
Way back when the CS department was still in Old West, I remember seeing Dr.
Brooks at different lectures and talks, always taking notes. I try to emulate
his example but I'm nowhere as consistent as he was. At least in my old age
I'm still trying to learn things, just as he is.

------
carlsborg
I will let you in on a secret. Brook's best work isn't the Mythical Man Month,
its a 2010 book called The Design of Design.

------
coverband
Best title I've seen on HN yet ;-)

~~~
cperciva
Apparently I was too creative for the moderators. :-(

~~~
coverband
Agreed :(. For anyone confused by the comment, the original title of the
submission was:

"Fred Brooks retires after 612 (mythical) man-months"

