“The large organization will consist of many semi-autonomous units, which we may call quasi-firms. Each of them will have a large amount of freedom, to give the greatest possible chance to creativity and entrepreneurship. . . . Each quasi-firm must… — Frederick P. Brooks Jr Copy Share Image
“The metaprogrammer who uses one, or especially several, applications as components in a larger system. This is the user whose needs are poorly met… — Frederick P. Brooks Jr Copy Share Image
“The big change has been in the hardware/software cost ratio. The buyer of a $2-million machine in 1960 felt that he could afford $250,000 more for a customized payroll program, one that slipped easily and nondisruptively into the computer-hostile social environment. Buyers of $50,000 office machines today cannot conceivably afford customized payroll programs; so they adapt their payroll procedures to… — Frederick P. Brooks Jr Copy Share
“The job done least well by project managers is to utilize the technical genius who is not strong on management talent.” — Frederick P. Brooks Jr Copy Share Image
“I have long enjoyed asking candidate programmers, "Where is next November?" If the question is too cryptic, then, "Tell me about your mental model… — Frederick P. Brooks Jr Copy Share Image
“Reducing the role conflict. The boss must first distinguish between action information and status information. He must discipline himself not to act on problems… — Frederick P. Brooks Jr Copy Share Image
“Lehman and Belady have studied the history of successive releases in a large operating system.[6] They find that the total number of modules increases… — Frederick P. Brooks Jr Copy Share Image
“Because ease of use is the purpose, this ratio of function to conceptual complexity is the ultimate test of system design. Neither function alone nor simplicity alone defines a good design. This point is widely misunderstood. Operating System/360 is hailed by its builders as the finest ever built, because it indisputably has the most function. Function, and not simplicity, has… — Frederick P. Brooks Jr Copy Share
“...give a great deal of attention to keeping his managers and his technical people as interchangeable as their talents allow. The barriers are sociological...… — Frederick P. Brooks Jr Copy Share Image
“The computer has brought a similar fluidity to many other media: artistic drawings, building plans, mechanical drawings, musical compositions, photographs, video sequences, slide presentations, multimedia works, and even to spreadsheets. In each case, the manual method of production required recopying the bulky unchanged parts in order to see changes in context. Now we enjoy for each medium the same benefits… — Frederick P. Brooks Jr Copy Share
“As time passes, the system becomes less and less well-ordered. Sooner or later the fixing cease to gain any ground. Each forward step is… — Frederick P. Brooks Jr Copy Share Image
“Finally, a manager's documents give him a data base and checklist. By reviewing them periodically he sees where he is, and he sees what… — Frederick P. Brooks Jr Copy Share Image
“Indeed, the cost-performance ratio of the product will depend most heavily on the implementer, just as ease of use depends most heavily on the… — Frederick P. Brooks Jr Copy Share Image
![“Lehman and Belady have studied the history of successive releases in a large operating system.[6] They find that the total number of modules increases linearly with release number, but that the number of modules affected increases exponentially with release number. All repairs tend to destroy the…” quote by Frederick P. Brooks Jr](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/115/frederick-p-brooks-jr-11230_history_lehman-and-belady-have-studied-the-histo_145780.jpg)
