(Book gift at the end of the article) Why do I recommend that everyone should get a copy of “The Myth of the Man and the Moon”

For friends who can click in, it means that you must be a friend who works in computers or is thinking carefully about this book.

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Article directory

  • 1. In an era where everyone can program, how do we survive?
  • 2. A short story explains why project managers must read this book
  • 3. How to evaluate “The Myth of the Man-Month: Commemorative Collector’s Edition”
  • 4. The table of contents of this book (you can take a look at the table of contents that I finally pulled out)
  • 5. Thank you to the fans who follow me and to you who are following this book. This book is given to you.

1. In an era where everyone can program, how can we survive?

I was reading a book "The Myth of the Man-Month (Commemorative Collector's Edition)", and I remember a passage in the book:

Looking back at the development of software engineering in the past 40 years, Jackson lamented that the software industry generally lacks professionalism and is full of business people. "If you have a hammer in your hand, everything you see is a nail." Anyone can develop life-threatening software.

If 1,000 people see this passage, there will definitely be 1,000 different comments and thoughts. After I understood it deeply, I suddenly realized that it makes sense. my comment:

  • Although we are in the era of programming now, primary school students are learning it, junior high school students are learning it, high school students are learning it, college students are still learning it, and even children in kindergarten are learning building block programming. I often see various advertisements promoting Python tutorials, and I always click on them to see what they contain. There are many Python courses for people who are not computer majors. They promise to save you a lot of time after learning them. For example, you can make reports and the like. Some of them are very tricky, so I won’t go into details here.
  • The current trend is very obvious and is moving towards an era where everyone must be able to program. How we gain a foothold is a question worth thinking about.
  • The excerpt above allows us to reflect on how to survive in an era where everyone can program. The answer is also in this passage, which can be summarized in two or three words: professionalism.
  • Yes, there is a lack of professional software developers now. (Please continue reading and you will discover the new world)

2. A short story explains why project managers must read this book

In XXX company, there is a middle-aged programmer named Lao Wang. He dreamed of developing an application that could help villagers buy and sell vegetables, and is now the person in charge of the project. In order to complete the project faster, the company boss suggested that he hire more programmers.

Excited, Lao Wang started working with his team. But as time went on, she found that the project was progressing slowly and communication between team members became increasingly complex. Seeing that the project was lagging behind, the boss suggested that he hire more programmers. But surprisingly, this only made the situation worse.

Lao Wang was confused. He thought that with more programmers, he could complete the work faster. But the reality was far from what he expected.

At this time, an old programmer in the town gave him a book “The Myth of the Man and the Moon”. Lao Wang suddenly realized it after reading it. He learned about the complexities of software projects and why simply adding more people wouldn't solve the problem and might even cause more problems.

Lao Wang adjusted the team structure according to the suggestions in the book, paid more attention to communication and planning, and finally successfully completed his project.

Both the boss and the users are very satisfied with this application. And Lao Wang deeply understood why every software engineer should read “The Myth of the Man-Month”.

This story highlights the importance of The Mythical Man-Month to understand the challenges in project management, especially when it comes to human factors and team dynamics.

3. How to evaluate “The Myth of Man-Month: Commemorative Collector’s Edition”

“The Mythical Man-Month: Anniversary Edition” (The Mythical Man-Month: Anniversary Edition) is a follow-up version of the original version of “The Mythical Man-Month”. Based on the 1975 edition by Frederick P. Brooks, the new book adds new chapters and content. Here are some of the main points and thoughts after reading “The Myth of the Man-Month: Memorial Collector’s Edition”:
Key takeaways:

  1. The Man-Month Myth: Reinforces the idea that adding people to a lagging project will only cause it to lag further.
  2. No Silver Bullet: The belief that there is no single solution that can drastically improve software development productivity.
  3. Conceptual Integrity: Emphasizes the importance of consistency and a single vision in product design.
  4. Redo rather than fix: It is recommended to completely redo the system design on the first attempt rather than simply fix it.
  5. Communication and documentation: As the size of your team grows, so does the cost of communication.
  6. The intangibility of software: The progress and complexity of software products are difficult to visualize, unlike physical products.
  7. Premature optimization: Focus on the correctness and clarity of the product first, and then consider optimization.
  8. Interaction between technology and people: Emphasizes the importance of human factors in software development.
  9. Challenges of Large Projects: There are fundamental differences between large projects and small projects.
  10. New chapters: The commemorative collector’s edition adds a re-evaluation and reflection on the original book’s ideas.

Possible thoughts after reading:

  1. Test of Time: The author’s ideas remain relevant even decades later, which shows the depth and durability of his insights.
  2. Human Factor: Software development is not just about code or technology, the interaction between people and teams plays a key role in project success.
  3. The Complexity of Project Management: This book provides insight into why software projects are often late and over budget, ideas that are still relevant today.
  4. Reflection and Learning: Brooks’s self-reflection and evaluation of original ideas in the commemorative edition demonstrate the self-critical spirit that a true scholar and practitioner should have.
  5. Inspiration and Guidance: For software engineers and project managers, this book provides valuable insight and guidance to help them avoid common pitfalls and manage projects more effectively.

After reading the commemorative collector’s edition, many readers may be deeply inspired and apply the author’s views and experiences to their own work.

4. The table of contents of this book (you can take a look at the table of contents that you finally pulled out)

Just look at the catalog and you will be attracted to it. Don’t worry, I’ll send you a copy soon.
Just look at the catalog and you will be attracted to it. Don’t worry, I’ll send you a copy soon.
Just look at the catalog and you will be attracted to it. Don’t worry, I’ll send you a copy soon.

Directory
Chapter 1 Tar Pits / 001
Programming system products / 003
The joy of profession / 005
Career troubles / 006
Chapter 2 The Myth of the Man and the Moon / 009
Optimism / 011
Person Month / 013
System Test / 016
Empty estimates / 018
Recurring progress disasters / 019
Chapter 3 Surgical Team / 025
Question / 027
Mills' advice / 029
How it works / 032
Team expansion / 033
Chapter 4 Aristocracy, Democracy and System Design / 035
Conceptual integrity / 037
Gain conceptual completeness / 038
Aristocracy and democracy / 039
What should the implementer do while waiting / 042
Chapter 5 Superfluous / 047
Architect’s Interaction Guidelines and Mechanisms / 049
Self-discipline - the consequences of developing a second system / 050
Chapter 6 Implementation / 055
Documented Specifications-Manual / 057
Formal definition / 058
Direct integration / 061
Meetings and Conferences / 061
Multiple realizations / 063
Telephone Log / 064
Product Testing / 064
Chapter 7 Why the Tower of Babel failed / 067
Management Lessons from the Tower of Babel / 069
Communication in large programming projects / 070
Project Work Manual / 070
Organizational structure of large programming projects / 074
Chapter 8 Confident / 079
Portman's data / 082
Aron's data / 083
Harr's data / 084
OS/360 data / 085
Corbató’s data / 086
Chapter 9 Cutting the Feet to Fit the Shoes / 087
Program space as cost / 089
Scale Control / 090
Space skills / 092
The representation of data is the foundation of programming / 093
Chapter 10 Outline and Leading Points / 095
Documentation for Computer Products / 097
University Department Documents / 099
Documentation for software projects / 099
Why there is a need for formal documentation / 100
Chapter 11 Prepare for a Rainy Day / 103
Pilot plants and scaling up / 105
The only thing that remains constant is change itself / 106
Designing systems for change / 106
Planning Organizational Structure for Change / 107
Two steps forward, one step back / 109
One step forward, one step back / 111
Chapter 12 General Moye / 113
Target machine / 116
Auxiliary Machine and Data Services / 118
High-Level Languages and Interactive Programming / 121
Chapter 13 Whole Part / 125
Design to eliminate bugs / 127
Building unit debugging / 129
System integration debugging / 132
Chapter 14 Trouble arises from Xiao Qiang / 137
Is it a milestone or a heavy burden / 139
"Other parts will fall behind anyway" / 141
Underneath the Carpet / 142
Chapter 15 The other side / 147
What documents are needed / 150
Flow chart / 152
Self-documenting programs / 156
Chapter 16 No Silver Bullet-Fundamental and Minor Issues in Software Engineering / 163
Abstract / 165
Introduction / 165
Fundamental difficulties / 166
Some breakthroughs in solving secondary difficulties in the past / 171
Silver Bullet Hope / 172
Promising approaches to conceptually fundamental problems / 181
Chapter 17 Again “No Silver Bullet” / 189
Werewolves and other horror legends / 191
There is a silver bullet-right here / 191
Vague expressions can lead to misunderstandings / 192
Harel's analysis / 195
Jones’s point of view-Quality brings productivity / 201
So, what about productivity / 201
Object-oriented programming - can this copper bullet work / 203
How about reuse / 205
Learning a large vocabulary-a foreseeable but not yet predicted problem in software reuse / 208
The Essence of Bullets-The Situation Has Not Changed / 209
Chapter 18 Viewpoints of "The Myth of the Man and the Moon": Right and Wrong / 211
Chapter 19 "The Myth of the Man and the Moon" 20 years later / 235
Why publish the 20th anniversary edition / 237
Core Viewpoints-Conceptual Integrity and Structural Engineer / 238
Consequences of Developing a Second System-Blind Guessing of Functionality and Frequency / 240
Success of Graphical Interface / 243
Don’t build and discard prototypes-the waterfall model is wrong / 247
Incremental development model is better-incremental refinement / 249
About information hiding, Parnas is right, I am wrong / 254
How much mythology does Man-Monon have? Boehm's model and data / 256
People are everything (or, almost everything) / 258
The power of giving up power / 259
What's the most surprising new thing? Millions of computers / 262
A new software industry-finished software packaged in plastic film / 264
Buy and develop-use plastic-wrapped finished software packages as components / 267
The state and future of software engineering / 269
Conclusion A fascinating, exciting and fun 50 years / 271

5. Thank you to the fans who follow me and to you who are following this book. This book is given to you

  • Book delivery rules:
  • Winning rules: If you make a sincere comment, you will have a chance to win a book;
  • How to participate: Write down your own story about software engineering, you can also write why you need this book, etc., put it in this article Comment area;
  • Deadline: 2023-September 15 at 20:00;
  • Book mailing: After it is completed, I will send a notice on my QQ community group as soon as possible and also tell you in the comment area. If you haven’t added QQ community (), please add it.
  • It doesn’t matter if you don’t win the prize. You can participate in an internal event and buy it directly. Anyway, it’s not worth a few dozen dollars:
  • Book purchase portal: https://u.jd.com/vuzIvEp

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