I think that more people quote Brooks than have read him and that more
people know him from the Mythical Man Month than from the POO.
He wasn't, by the way, the principle architect of OS/360; he was the manager
of the 360 development organization. I will email a monster cookie to the
first person who correctly identifies the original architect of OS/360.
And yes, if Linus manages to learn some new lesson from Linux and writes a
book about it of the endurance of MMM, I'll be shown wrong in my assertion
about his being remembered.
By the way, my favorite part of the anniversary edition of MMM is Brooks'
apology to Gries about being wrong about information hiding.
-----Original Message-----
From: Malcolm Beattie [mailto:mbeattie@sable.ox.ac.uk]
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2000 3:22 AM
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Availability of kdb
Marty Fouts writes:
> Here's another piece of free advice, worth less than you paid for it: in
25
> years, only the computer history trivia geeks are going to remember you,
> just as only a very small handful of us now remember who wrote OS/360.
You mean like Fred Brooks who managed the development of OS/360, had
some innovative ideas about how large software projects should be run,
whose ideas clashed with contemporary ones, who became a celebrity?
You don't spot any parallels there? He whose book "Mythical Man Month"
with "No Silver Bullet" and "The Second System Effect" are quoted
around the industry decades later? And you think that's only a small
handful of people?
--Malcolm
-- Malcolm Beattie <mbeattie@sable.ox.ac.uk> Unix Systems Programmer Oxford University Computing Services - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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