Bill Atkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: ... > > And here is where we check if you're as gracious about admitting your > > errors, as I am about mine. Brooks' law is: > > > > """Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.""" > > > > These are Brooks' words, literally. OK so far? > > You are correct. > > I posted too hastily. Here is what my paragraph ought to have said: > > Buh? The project doesn't have to be late for Brooks's law to hold; > adding programmers *in the middle of a project*, so goes Brooks > reasoning, will always increase the time required to complete the > project because of various communication issues. > > Agree?
"What does one do when an essential software project is behind schedule? Add manpower, naturally. As Figs 2.1 through 2.4 suggest, this may or may not help". How do you translate "may or may not help" into "will always increase the time required", and manage to impute that translation to "Brooks reasoning"? It *MAY* help -- Brooks says so very explicitly, and from the Fig 2.4 he quotes just as explicitly you may infer he has in mind that the cases in which it may help are those in which the project was badly understaffed to begin with (a very common case, as the rest of the early parts of chapter 2 explains quite adequately). I could further critique Brooks for his ignoring specific personal factors -- some extremely rare guys are able to get up to speed on an existing project in less time, and requiring less time from those already on board, than 99.9% of the human race (the JOAT in my previous example); and, another crucial issue is that sometimes the key reason a project is late is due to lack of skill on some crucial _specialty_, in which case, while adding more "generic" programmers "may or may not help" (in Brooks' words), adding just the right specialist (such as, the cryptography expert in my previous example) can help a LOT. But, it would be uncourteous to critique a seminal work in the field for not anticipating such detailed, nuanced discussion (besides, in the next chapter Brooks does mention teams including specialists, although if I recall correctly he does not touch on the issue of a project which finds out the need for a specialist _late_, as in this case). I'm still more interested in critiquing your overgeneralization of Brooks' assertions and reasoning. Alex -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list