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!”
