“ Why Have Formal Documents? First, writing the decisions down is essential. Only when one writes do the gaps appear and the inconsistencies protrude. The act of writing turns out to require hundreds of… Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ On balance I think the microfiche was a very happy mechanism, and I would recommend it over a paper workbook for very large projects. Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ Especially noteworthy is his comment that new people added late in a development project must be team players willing to pitch in and work within the process, and not attempt to alter or improve the p… Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ Conceptual integrity does require that a system reflect a single philosophy and that the specification as seen by the user flow from a few minds. Because of the real division of labor into architectur… Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ By documenting a design, the designer exposes himself to the criticisms of everyone, and he must be able to defend everything he writes. If the organizational structure is threatening in any way, noth… Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ Almost invariably I have made wrong assumptions about how they would use the new tool. Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ There is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simpl… Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ The true implementers are intimately involved in the design process; their broad experience provides the balance for a designer’s limited implementation examples. (In Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ When a child has learned this architecture, he can tell time as easily from a wristwatch as from a church tower. Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ The job done least well by project managers is to utilize the technical genius who is not strong on management talent. Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ The challenge and the mission are to find real solutions to real problems on actual schedules with available resources. Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ Everything has been composed, just not yet written down. LETTER TO LEOPOLD MOZART [1780] Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ Conway's Law predicts: Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce systems which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.[1] Conway goes on to point out tha… Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ And so from a statistical mechanical model, Belady and Lehman arrive for programming-systems at a more general conclusion supported by the experience of all the earth. Things are always at their best… Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ This really does attack essence. Because the build-on-package phenomenon does not today affect the average MIS programmer, it is not yet very visible to the software engineering discipline. Neverthele… Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
“ This great church is an incomparable work of art. There is neither aridity nor confusion in the tenets it sets forth. . . . It is the zenith of a style, the work of artists who had understood and assi… Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
