Entries published on October 20, 2023

1 entry published on this date. See also: all entries published in October 2023, full archive.

Bullets of vaguely silvery hue

There is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even a single order-of-magnitude improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity.

If “The Mythical Man-Month” — or at least the popular distillation of it into a single pithy saying — is the most famous thing the late Fred Brooks ever wrote, then “No Silver Bullet”, the essay quoted above, must surely be the most infamous, or perhaps the most-argued-about, even in the pre-Web era, since Brooks felt the need to write a followup (“‘No Silver Bullet’ Refired”) further explaining his points, and …

Entry published October 20, 2023. Read full entry.