[Update] You cannot read MMM without reading “Death March — Yourdon”. I just skimmed sections named “Good Enough” and “Best Practices, Worst Practices”. I will have to rip this book shortly.
I was given my first copy of this book when I was a contractor at IBM. The manager that loaned it to me was a good person and an effective leader, manager and architect. I ripped through parts of the book and gave up. Brooks is a fine writer but some of the stories were just a little too slow. Also, for my taste, once you acknowledge that the writer is credible and provides reasonable references then I get lost in the arguing over the minutia.
What is also interesting that this tomb tome was accepted as gospel in the 1980s. A lot of the information in the book is still consistant with my personal experience but someday it may all be regarded as false. For the moment I’ll keep my one page summary as the summary I might use when my intuition checks out.
Ed Yourdon
2012/10/04 at 10:15
I think you meant “tome,” not “tomb,” in your comment. And since you refer to the tomb/tome being regarded as the “gospel” in the 1980s, I assume that you’re referring to the MMM book. Don’t know if you’re aware that a 20th-anniversary edition of MMM was published in 1995, with some new chapters; you can find it easily on Amazon etc.
Richard Bucker
2012/10/04 at 10:51
Thank you for the comment. Agreed. I reread the 20th ed. Many things still hold true but it’s a pretty depressing book.