Talk:Fred Brooks

On "plan to throw one away" quote

Regarding the "plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow" quote, I found the following comment purportedly from Brooks himself at [1]:

"That was the first edition of The Mythical Man-Month. In the second edition, I say that was misguided! You ought to plan to continually iterate on it, not just build it, throw it away and start over. Some of the things I said in 1975 were wrong, and in the second edition, I correct them."

I feel like it would be worthwhile to amend this quote, or expand on it with his additional insights, because I have the impression that this quote from him is very influential and that he corrected himself later. But I don't have a copy of the second edition at hand to verify the correct quote in this case. --Psequeirag (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

The quote is correct, and appears in both editions. A separate essay added to the 1995 edition clarifies by identifying the development model people were using at the time, and says this about the famous quote: "It is not the diagnosis that is wrong; it is the remedy... it fails to get at the root of the problem [with the 'waterfall' model]." It is still a very quotable quote. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:37, 27 December 2012 (UTC)