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Fred Brooks has died

by tkhattra on 11/18/22, 2:56 AM with 211 comments

by breck on 11/18/22, 6:47 AM

I exchanged a few emails with Fred over the years. RIP Fred. Thank you so much for all the wisdom. Sharing one of the last responses here:

    Thanks for your kind words.  You will find lots of condensed wisdom in the three software books I 
    value most:
    
    DeMarco & Lister Peopleware

    2007. Software engineering: Barry Boehm's lifetime contributions to software development, 
    management and research. Ed. by Richard Selby.

    Hoffman, Daniel M.; Weiss David M. (Eds.): Software Fundamentals – Collected Papers by David L. 
    Parnas, 2001, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-70369-6.

    You might also like my later book on technical design in general:  The Design of Design.  Start 
    with Part II.

by pjmorris on 11/18/22, 8:40 AM
MMM deserves all the attention it gets, but there's more!
1. I've got to track down the source of the quote (it may be the linked video), but Brooks has said that the most important architectural decision he made was to have an eight bit byte rather than the cheaper 7 bits (Edit: 6 bits) being considered for the IBM 360. To call that influential is an understatement.
2. And he has said the most important management decision was sending Ted Codd to graduate school, where Codd laid the foundation for what became relational databases.
3. A paper [0] he co-authored with Amdahl and Blaauw introduced the term 'architecture' to computer hardware, later borrowed for software. From the first page: "The term architecture is used here to describe the attributes of a system as seen by the programmer, i.e., the conceptual structure and functional behavior, as distinct from the organization of the data flow and controls, the logical design, and the physical implementation."
He gave an interesting talk at the 50th anniversary of the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) a few years ago, [1]
[0] 'Architecture of the IBM System/360', Amdahl, Blaauw, Brooks.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StN49re9Nq8
by dalke on 11/18/22, 9:17 AM
My one email exchange with Brooks had nothing to do with Mythical Man Month.
In the 1990s I was was the junior co-founder and, for a while, main developer of VMD, a program for molecular visualization. I wanted to include molecular surface visualization, but me being me, would rather integrate someone else's good work.
I looked around and found "Surf", a molecular surface solver written by Amitabh Varshney when he was at the University of North Carolina. (See "Computing Smooth Molecular Surfaces", IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/310720 .)
Brooks, you may not know, heard Sutherland talk about using the screen as a window into another world, which got Brooks interested in VR. Back in the 1970s, at UNC, they started experimenting with head-mounted displays. Brooks worked on VR for the rest of his career.
The UNC VR group worked on many different VR approaches, including haptic (tactile) feedback. As I recall, the first was a used hydraulic-powered robot arm. People had to wear a lab coat and helmet when using it because it would leak, and had a tendency to hit people.
One of the experiments, the NanoManipulator, hooked up the VR and haptic feedback (not that same robot!) to an atomic-force microscope, so people could feel the surface and move nanoscale objects around. http://www.warrenrobinett.com/nano/ .
Brooks felt that VR would be very useful for molecular visualization, and developed the GRIP Molecular Graphics Resource. Quoting https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA236598.pdf , some of its early achievements were "the first molecular graphics system on which a protein was solved without a physical model", "using remote manipulator technology to enable users to feel molecular forces", and "Real-time, user-steered volume visualization of an electron density map".
As that document points out, their goal was to "wildcat radical new molecular graphics ideas to the prototype stage. Winning ideas are spun off to the thriving commercial industry or into autonomous research projects."
Surf fit very well in those lines, as VMD was an "autonomous research project".
My exchange with Brooks and UNC was 1) to get permission to distribute Surf as part of the VMD distribution, and, 2) a few years later, to provide numbers about how many people had downloaded VMD with Surf.
by rychco on 11/18/22, 4:38 AM
I have fond memories of attending his "No Silver Bullet" lecture only a few short years ago.
A favorite quote of mine from MMM: "The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures...."
by KrisJordan on 11/18/22, 4:53 AM
"The teacher's job is to design learning experiences; not primarily to impart information." -Fred Brooks
A favorite, lesser known quote of Fred's from his technical communications course at UNC and a SIGCSE talk. Beyond a software engineer and researcher, he was an extraordinary educator. His design ethos carried through to pedagogy, as well, and has been an inspiration to me. Thanks, Fred.
by dhruvmittal on 11/18/22, 4:42 PM
During my first week at UNC Chapel Hill, I had an incredibly opportunity through the honors program where a handful of new students (including myself, an aspring CS student) got to hang out with Fred Brooks for an evening. I don't think I really knew who he was at the time, but I did recognize his name as the one on the CS Building.
When we talk about Fred Brooks now, we're usually talking about the things he's written (MMM, No Silver Bullet, etc.) or the impact he's had on computing (8 bit byte, founding the CS depts, etc.). He didn't talk about any of that with us freshmen. Other than a brief introduction, he didn't talk about any of that at all.
Instead, he talked to us about what he saw as the future. The most exciting thing going forward, as he saw it in August of 2011, was the development of the interface between biology and computing. One of the things that stuck with me was that he said he hoped students today looked at biology the way he looked at computer science back in the 50s and 60s, as a land of unlimited potential.
by avg_dev on 11/18/22, 3:23 AM
I know a lot of people like MMM - I too enjoyed it. “The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.” Still totally valid, IMO.
But I really enjoyed The Design of Design as well.
R.I.P. Mr. Brooks. I thank you for introducing to me the idea of conceptual integrity.
by thyrsus on 11/18/22, 10:41 AM
Message from the Chair of the UNC Computer Science Department (personal phone number elided):
Dear Friends,
It is with great sadness that I must share the following update on the health of the Department Founder Dr. Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. I know how much Dr. Brooks has meant to the department, to computer graphics, to the world of computing, and to each of you. So I wanted to reach out and pass on the following message from his son, Roger Brooks.
Dr. Samarjit Chakraborty Chair, UNC Department of Computer Science
– Begin Forwarded Message – Subject: Frederick's condition and his Hope
Dear ones:
As you may have heard, on Saturday my father came home from the hospital into hospice care. He spends most of the time sleeping. When (slightly) awake, he is only slightly responsive, and not able to respond verbally to questions. He seems to be in no pain and no particular discomfort. He is eating and drinking small amounts, but far from enough.
Frederick P. Brooks Jr. has fought the good fight, run the good race, been an outstanding husband and father and mentor and friend of many . . . and is now fading away. His hope and his coming joy, in death and in life, is in his Lord Jesus Christ, who I know will welcome him with “Well done . . .”.
The hospice nurse tells us that my father may live several days to 10 days or so.
You may share this information with all who would want to know. I know that I am missing email addresses for beloved friends which exist somewhere in my parents’ contact lists, and I apologize that I do not have time to dig for those.
With family and aides around, we have ample help. If you would like to come and visit my mother, or bring your last respects and prayers to my father, please just call the house first. Close friends are welcome, but it is hard to predict in advance when things will be busy or peaceful.
Kori Robbins, associate pastor at Orange Methodist Church, visited yesterday and prayed what I thought was exactly the appropriate, loving, and merciful prayer, which she tells me she adapted from Douglas McKelvey's A Liturgy for the Final Hours. We ask you to join in this prayer:
O God our Father, O Christ our Brother, O Spirit our comforter,
Fred is ready.
Now meet him at this mortal threshold and deliver him to that eternal city; to your radiant splendor; to your table and the feast and the festival of friends; to the wonder and the welcome of his heart's true home.
He but waits for your word. Bid him rise and follow, and he will follow you gladly into that deeper glory,
O Spirit his True Shepherd, O Christ his True King, O God his True and Loving Father, receive him now, and forgive his sins, through the blood of his Savior Jesus Christ.
Roger Brooks Sr.
by hcrisp on 11/18/22, 4:28 AM
Another quote of his;
"Show me your flowchart and conceal your tables, and I shall continue to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won't usually need your flowchart; it'll be obvious." -- Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man Month (1975)
Stated a different way:
"Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships." -Linus Torvalds
by po84 on 11/18/22, 1:34 PM
I had the privilege of attending some of Dr. Brooks' lectures. His views on the role of a computer scientist have helped me find meaning and direction in my career. May he rest in peace.
In a word, the computer scientist is a toolsmith--no more, but no less. It is an honorable calling. If we perceive our role aright, we then see more clearly the proper criterion for success: a toolmaker succeeds as, and only as, the users of his tool succeed with his aid. However shining the blade, however jeweled the hilt, however perfect the heft, a sword is tested only by cutting. That swordsmith is successful whose clients die of old age.
https://www.cs.unc.edu/~brooks/Toolsmith-CACM.pdf
by monksy on 11/18/22, 4:13 AM
I'm pretty sad about this.
When I was in high school and learning how to program, he let me borrow a copy of his Mythical Man Month book.
by khazhoux on 11/18/22, 4:59 AM
The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures.
by pixelmonkey on 11/18/22, 3:41 AM
Deserves the black bar, in my view. Probably one of the most widely-discussed and most oft-cited writers among hackers of multiple generations.
He will always be remembered for “Brooks’s Law”, colloquially, “adding people to a late software project makes it later”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law
And for his timeless essay, “No Silver Bullet”, which introduced the idea of accidental vs essential complexity in software:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet
RIP.
by ghoward on 11/18/22, 5:20 AM
It is once again time for me to re-read The Mythical Man Month and watch his No Silver Bullet lecture. No better way to respect such a giant.
by perryizgr8 on 11/18/22, 6:46 AM
“What one programmer can do in one month, two programmers can do in two months.”
― Fred Brooks
I printed this out and taped it to the whiteboard at my desk. Handy to point out to the manager in various situations.
by quantified on 11/18/22, 3:06 AM
The Mythical Man-Month is one of the seminal works on software engineering practice. It has held up extremely well over time. If I have to jettison professional books over time for whatever reason, it'll be in the last box /shelf I retain.
by khazhoux on 11/18/22, 8:30 PM
One of the things that always amazed me was how present he always was. Any lecture he attended, regardless of the speaker or topic (which were very far-ranging) he always asked questions. Good, tough, insightful questions. His mind was never passive, and he set a great example for everyone decades younger than him.
by state_less on 11/18/22, 4:46 AM
Fred brooks went supernova today. Let the brilliant light mark his passing and remind us of the light he shined on the software world.
by acdha on 11/18/22, 5:02 AM
Sad news but he left a legacy to be proud of. Few people write anything which will be read half a century later, much less as a source of insight rather than historical context.
by magicink81 on 11/18/22, 6:51 AM
"Conceptual integrity is the most important attribute of a great design" from The Design of Design
by pieterr on 11/18/22, 7:25 AM
Dr. Brooks on No silver Bullet (while eating pizza).
https://youtu.be/HWYrrw7Zf1k
RIP Dr. Brooks.
by KrisJordan on 11/18/22, 7:51 PM
The Department of Computer Science at UNC Chapel Hill, which Fred founded in 1964, shares our official remembrance letter here: https://cs.unc.edu/news-article/remembering-department-found...
by pasttense01 on 11/18/22, 3:32 AM
"The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering is a book on software engineering and project management by Fred Brooks first published in 1975, with subsequent editions in 1982 and 1995. Its central theme is that adding manpower to software project that is behind schedule delays it even longer. This idea is known as Brooks's law, and is presented along with the second-system effect and advocacy of prototyping.
Brooks's observations are based on his experiences at IBM while managing the development of OS/360. He had added more programmers to a project falling behind schedule, a decision that he would later conclude had, counter-intuitively, delayed the project even further."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month
by AlbertCory on 11/18/22, 4:10 AM
Sad. He was a giant.
I'm glad I got to at least shake his hand. One of the lawyers at Google had studied under him, and when I saw them crossing the street I just assumed the older gentleman with the visitor's badge was Brooks (I didn't even know what he looked like, but I found out later I'd guessed correctly).
by codetrotter on 11/18/22, 11:29 AM
I really enjoyed his book “The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist”
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7157080-the-design-of-de...
RIP Mr. Brooks
by quonn on 11/18/22, 4:57 PM
Brooks and Knuth (fortunately still with us) are not only respected but also loved. I sometimes miss this in our field where sometimes success is valued more than a great mind and a great mind more than a lovable well-rounded person.
by jessmartin on 11/18/22, 4:36 PM
The ACM recorded this 2-hour long interview[0] with Fred that walks through his whole history. It's incredible to see Fred's ability to recall conversations and technical decisions from over 50 years ago!
I admire his ability to move back and forth between industry and academia and move the entire field forward.
One of my favorite quotes: "A scientist builds in order to learn. An engineer learns in order to build."
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul0dbgs8Mdk
by kweinber on 11/18/22, 3:28 AM
Sad loss. One might wonder how much faster technology’s state of the art would have progressed if we had more people like Fred Brooks working in the field.
by mwcampbell on 11/18/22, 12:58 PM
For some reason I thought Brooks had already died some years ago, but then I remembered that what I had previously read was the comment thread on the announcement of his retirement in 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11257437
by JohnDeHope on 11/18/22, 3:30 AM
That’s somebody’s funeral I would like to attend, to pay my respects.
by phtrivier on 11/18/22, 11:27 AM
A great way to go to posterity is to state a law that so much depends on some basic human flaw, that it can not be bent until Darwin changes our brain.
Brook law of late software project will be quoted for the rest of times, because software projects will be late for the rest of time.
May Mr. Brooks rest in peace until then.
by elanning on 11/18/22, 4:28 AM
Rest in peace to one of the greats.
You might want to consider reading The Design of Design if you liked The Mythical Man-Month.
by fredrikholm on 11/18/22, 9:49 AM
A true yet humble giant.
Reading his works elucidated so many ideas and experiences that I could not myself articulate, and helped set the foundation for my own ideas further down the line.
RIP Fred, thank you for all your warm kindness and endless contributions to our field at large.
by drallison on 11/18/22, 8:37 AM
Just a quick reminder: Fred Brooks did much more than write the Mythical Man Month.
by qclibre22 on 11/18/22, 5:58 PM
We are standing on the shoulders of giants. He was one of the tallest.
by ChrisMarshallNY on 11/18/22, 11:26 AM
That is sad, but he had a great career.
He, along with folks like Watts Humphries, and Donald Knuth, were some of the earliest published "Computer Programming As An Engineering Discipline" types.
by phtrivier on 11/18/22, 4:45 PM
Who is currently writing things that might end up having the impact of the MMM ?
It's Friday, and I'm grumpy, so I could very well argue that the age of the "thinkers" is dead and gone for software, and that everything that comes from now is just rehashing old good ideas (at best) or propagating new bad ones.
Let's be charitable and assume there is still 1% a good stuff among the junk. Who's writing it ? Who's on the good side of the tar pit, and has the potential to lend a hand ?
by wbillingsley on 11/18/22, 7:35 AM
Hugely sorry to hear this. I met him when he was visiting Cambridge while I was a PhD student and he's a wonderful person as well as a computing luminary.
by bluGill on 11/18/22, 6:10 PM
They will get his funeral done in record time by assigning 9 preachers to speak at the same time.
RIP Fred, you were a giant and will be missed.
by muh_gradle on 11/18/22, 5:14 AM
May he rest in peace. Like many here, I was first introduced to Dr. Fred Brooks through Mythical Man-Month, which has had a tremendous impact in shaping my views on software. Afterwards I saw some of his lectures that he held at UNC on Youtube, and always wished I had attended UNC for my undergraduate studies.
by beckingz on 11/18/22, 5:37 AM
A Man who will be Mythical every Month.
by fsckboy on 11/18/22, 5:41 AM
Fred Brooks, a mythic figure, who lived a couple days shy of a very productive 1099 man-months. RIP.
by EdwardCoffin on 11/18/22, 1:52 PM
I rarely see this mentioned, but book he authored with Gerrit A. Blaauw, Computer Architecture, has a really cool way of characterizing the various machine architectures by describing their data representations, formats, and significant operations in APL.
by yieldcrv on 11/18/22, 8:59 AM
(Feel like these trailblazers in computing are going to get more frequent, does anyone have an analysis on how much HN makes the banner to someone over the years)
by j5r5myk on 11/18/22, 8:07 AM
Sad to hear. I did CS at UNC and will always cherish those late nights coding in the Brooks building. I have my dad’s first edition of MMM as well. RIP.
by herodoturtle on 11/18/22, 6:36 AM
RIP Mr Brooks.
I've still got my copy of MMM from 20 years ago. I re-read it recently (~2 years ago). Such great wisdom in that book. Would highly recommend it.
by kwertyoowiyop on 11/18/22, 4:25 AM
Such a classic book. Are any other computer books from that date still relevant at all, let alone relevant to such a wide audience?
by kristopolous on 11/18/22, 4:47 AM
I was just looking him up the other day and found it was remarkable he was still alive. What a wonderful long life
by neilwilson on 11/18/22, 7:29 AM
Another legend leaves us.
Hopefully this will encourage more to read his work. It's about human behaviour and timeless.
by Guthur on 11/18/22, 11:51 AM
I was literally just reading "there is no silver bullet" this week.
Quite the legacy, long may it last.
by djbusby on 11/18/22, 5:46 AM
We need a black stripe on here @dang
by dbremont on 11/18/22, 1:12 PM
Very sad News: Thanks for your enormous contribution to humanity !!! RIP, DR. Brooks
by Abumubeen on 11/18/22, 9:55 AM
RIP
by betimsl on 11/18/22, 8:49 AM
I qofte dheu i lehte.
by jbirer on 11/18/22, 3:12 PM
So that's why there's a black bar, phew. glad it's not a bug on my browser.
by dang on 11/18/22, 4:14 AM
We should probably wait for confirmation from more than this source. I don't disbelieve it, because they cite the UNC CS department, but even Wikipedia hasn't been updated yet.
by avgcorrection on 11/18/22, 6:40 AM
I wasn’t impressed by Man Month. The two major insights IIRC:
1. Adding more people adds overhead which slows down productivity. Might even make it worse
2. 10X developer (100X) mythology and how other programmers should be their support secretaries
(1) is too obvious and (2) I didn’t like for self-interest reasons.