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20 lines
3.0 KiB
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Brooks's Law</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../B.html" title="B"/><link rel="previous" href="broket.html" title="broket"/><link rel="next" href="brown-paper-bag-bug.html" title="brown-paper-bag bug"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Brooks's Law</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="broket.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">B</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="brown-paper-bag-bug.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="Brookss-Law"/><dt xmlns="" id="Brookss-Law"><b>Brooks's Law</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">prov.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> “<span class="quote">Adding manpower to a late software project makes it
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later</span>” — a result of the fact that the expected advantage from
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splitting development work among <tt class="literal">N</tt>
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programmers is <tt class="literal">O(N)</tt> (that is, proportional
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to <tt class="literal">N</tt>), but the complexity and
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communications cost associated with coordinating and then merging their
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work is <tt class="literal">O(N^2)</tt> (that is, proportional to
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the square of <tt class="literal">N</tt>). The quote is from Fred
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Brooks, a manager of IBM's OS/360 project and author of <i class="citetitle">The
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Mythical Man-Month</i> (Addison-Wesley, 1975, ISBN 0-201-00650-2),
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an excellent early book on software engineering. The myth in question has
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been most tersely expressed as “<span class="quote">Programmer time is fungible</span>”
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and Brooks established conclusively that it is not. Hackers have never
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forgotten his advice (though it's not the whole story; see
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<a href="bazaar.html"><i class="glossterm">bazaar</i></a>); too often,
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<a href="../M/management.html"><i class="glossterm">management</i></a> still does. See also
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<a href="../C/creationism.html"><i class="glossterm">creationism</i></a>,
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<a href="../S/second-system-effect.html"><i class="glossterm">second-system effect</i></a>, <a href="../O/optimism.html"><i class="glossterm">optimism</i></a>.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="broket.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../B.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="brown-paper-bag-bug.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">broket </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> brown-paper-bag bug</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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