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Discussion on: Book Review: The Mythical Man Month (1995)

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awwsmm profile image
Andrew (he/him)

I think you're right. Most of what is discussed in TMM is taken for granted nowadays -- lots of disk space so comments can be interleaved with source code, distributed version control systems, better communication across teams, and more.

Brooks actually recommends Peopleware near the end of TMM, so I'll definitely have to check it out.

Finally, with regards to your last comment, I think it's a matter of usage. From what I can gather from Brooks' writing in TMM, he defines "self-documenting programs" as programs which have the documentation included with the source code, as opposed to typed up and printed in a separate manual somewhere. I think I agree with your more modern definition of "self-documenting code", in that variable names, function names, etc. should be self-explanatory, and therefore not need much documentation or commenting at all. I think it's just a shift in the connotation since 1975.

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johncip profile image
jmc

Oops, I misread you & thought you were advocating for a shift in the recommendation. But that makes perfect sense.