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Frederick P. Brooks
(1931 - )
American computer scientist who, while working for IBM (1956-1965), developed the Stretch and Harvest computers, followed by managing the development of the company's System/360 family of computers. This work earned him the award of a National Medal of Technology.
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Science Quotes by Frederick P. Brooks (3 quotes)
[Brook's Law:] Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
— Frederick P. Brooks
The Mythical Man-Month,' Datamation, Dec 1974. In Fred R. Shapiro, The Yale Book of Quotations (2006), 105.
The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.
(Referring to adding manpower to a software project.)
(Referring to adding manpower to a software project.)
— Frederick P. Brooks
The Mythical Man-Month,' Datamation, Dec 1974. In Fred R. Shapiro, The Yale Book of Quotations (2006), 105.
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.…
Yet the program construct, unlike the poet's words, is real in the sense that it moves and works, producing visible outputs separate from the construct itself. […] The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.
Yet the program construct, unlike the poet's words, is real in the sense that it moves and works, producing visible outputs separate from the construct itself. […] The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.
— Frederick P. Brooks
In The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering (1975), 7.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
