No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering

No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering (1987)

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by Frederick P. Brooks

Venue:	IEEE Computer
Citations:	482 - 0 self

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Datum	Value	Source
TITLE	No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering	INFERENCE
AUTHOR NAME	Frederick P. Brooks	SVM HeaderParse 0.2
ABSTRACT	Of all the monsters that fill the nightmares of our folklore, none terrify more than werewolves, because they transform unexpectedly from the familiar into horrors. For these, one seeks bullets of silver that can magically lay them to rest. The familiar software project, at least as seen by the nontechnical manager, has something of this character; it is usually innocent and straightforward, but is capable of becoming a monster of missed schedules, blown budgets, and flawed products. So we hear desperate cries for a silver bullet--something to make software costs drop as rapidly as computer hardware costs do. But, as we look to the horizon of a decade hence, we see no silver bullet. There is no single development, in either technology or in management technique, that by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity. In this article, I shall try to show why, by examining both the nature of the software problem and the properties of the bullets proposed. Skepticism is not pessimism, however. Although we see no startling breakthroughs--and indeed, I believe such to be inconsistent with the nature of software--many encouraging	SVM HeaderParse 0.2
YEAR	1987	INFERENCE
VENUE	IEEE Computer	INFERENCE
VENUE TYPE	JOURNAL	INFERENCE
PAGES	10--19	INFERENCE
VOLUME	20	INFERENCE
CITATIONS	11 found	ParsCit 1.0