79 Quotes by Fred Brooks

What one programmer can do in one month, two programmers can do in two months.

Nine people can't make a baby in a month.

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 simplicity.

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later

How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time.

How does a project get to be a year late? One day at a time.

The fundamental problem with program maintenance is that fixing a defect has a substantial (20-50 percent) chance of introducing another. So the whole process is two steps forward and one step back..

Systematically identity top designers as early as possible. The best are often not the most experienced.

Job Control Language is the worst programming language ever designed anywhere by anybody for any purpose.