Skip to content

Quotes from The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering — Fred Brooks

1931–2022 United States

← All quotes by Fred Brooks

6 quotes

The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering (1975)

An ancient adage warns, "Never go to sea with two chronometers; take one or three."

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering (1975)

Show me your flowcharts and conceal your tables, and I shall continue to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won’t usually need your flowcharts; they’ll be obvious.

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering (1975)

How does a project get to be a year late? … One day at a time.

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering (1975)

Brooks's Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering (1975)

The management question, therefore, is not whether to build a pilot system and throw it away. You will do that. […] Hence plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow.

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering (1975)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Fred Brooks (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.