Code Read 1 - Frederick Brooks and the Mythical Man Month

Since Scott Rosenberg seemed to have so much worth reading in his book, Dreaming in Code , I've decided to spend a few days catching up on the Code Reads section of his blog. He provides weekly links to various original sources of the field, which are followed by a discussion.

Week 1, discussing The Mythical Man Month by Frederick Brooks, starts the series out with what is undoubtedly one of the most important books in the field. Most famous for Brooks Law: "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later", the book actually has quite a lot more to say about how to build software without getting caught in the "tar-pit" (his image) of perpetually slipping schedules.

I'm not going to go into too much detail now, because I'm still re-reading it, but I am particularly stuck by "conceptual integrity", something which he argues is very important to a successful software project. I think this is a key point in something that I plan to explore a lot more in the blog - we usually build software using a set of basic abstractions, or a model. Whether the model is appropriate and flexible can make a huge difference in how the project proceeds. Succinctly, what makes a good object model?

More soon...