The Tar Pit - Frederick P. Brooks, JR.
Number 63:
Article: 10/10
A really great essay on why programming projects are so difficult to complete.
Even programs that are easy to write end up taking longer and longer when you have to make the program robust, stable, document and make general enough to be useful in situations you haven’t considered yet. Brooks states that this takes as much as 3 times as long.
The other side is if you need to write your program to be integrated into other systems, write nice interfaces etc, which can take 3 times as long as well.
Thus to make a total Programming system can take 9 times longer to write than the simple program
It also has a great section on the Joy and Woe of “the craft” of programming. The joy from creating and problem solving to the woe of having to depend on others code systems and having to be creative only within someone else’s vision and goal.
The Mythical Man-Month remains an incredible read for all software developers
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