Fred Brooks, Titan of Computer Science, Dies at 91

Steven Bellovin:

Brooks is famous for many things. Many people know him best as the author of The Mythical Man-Month, his musings on software engineering and why it’s so very hard. Some of his prescriptions seem quaint today — no one these days would print out documentation on microfiche every night to distribute to developers — but his observations about the problems of development remain spot-on. But he did so much more. [...]

He was also a lead on a failed project, the IBM 8000 series. He tried to resign from IBM after it failed; [CEO Thomas] Watson replied, “I just spent a billion dollars educating you; I’m not letting you go now!”

★ Saturday, 19 November 2022