Talk:Brooks's law

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John Drummond

The link to John Drummond is broken. And, I can't find in Brooks's book this variation on Brooks's Law that Drummond gives. Can anyone shed light on this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rochkind (talk • contribs) 17:56, 10 January 2006

Brooks's

I have changed Brooks's to Brooks' since that is how it's in the title. But it appears there is some discussion. Which is correct? Please discuss here before changing. Google shows "Brooks' law" as the clear winner. Piet 15:54, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If it becomes Brooks's law, the article should move to that name.Piet 15:58, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unless there are more than one Brooks, Brooks's is correct

I could be mistaken here, but in English classes, we were taught that a word whose singlular ends in "s" does not take an additional "s" after the apostrophe. If this is incorrect, do you have a good source where I might straighten out this and (preferrably) other mistakes? Zuiram 19:59, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've clearly got too much time on my hands. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv57.shtml - says either works for names (e.g. Dickens' or Dickens's) according to preference - seems reasonable and pragmatic, like language should be - and since Brooks himself uses the former form, we should be consistent and reflect that in the article. Because consistency (far from being the last refuge of the scoundrel) is the most important thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.228.156.225 (talk) 10:52, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's Brooks's. The rule is that an extra S is not added to possessive plurals which end in S, not just any word. And Brooks himself uses "Brooks's", so even if there were a grammatical argument (which there isn't) we'd use the author's nomenclature. Chris Cunningham 09:33, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This information is incorrect. It is currently taught that if a singular noun ends in s, you do not add an additional s when you make it possessive. If you do not believe me you can check wikipedia's own page on grammar "Genetive case" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive_case#The_English_-.27s_ending . It lists "Confucius' " as an example. Spelling this page as "Brooks's" is just plain silly and conflicts with other information on this very website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.213.212.37 (talk) 21:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. The linked article doesn't go into any detail about this, and is not necessarily correct. Most style guides recommend adding an 's' at the end, regardless of the final consonant, e.g: http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk.html#1 Fowler's Modern English Usage (don't have a copy to hand, so no page number) recommends this unless it's a famous name and common practice is not to do so, e.g. "Jesus'" and perhaps the "Confucius'" referred to by the previous commenter. Given these facts and the fact that Brooks called it "Brooks's law", I'm in favour of a change. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.54.84.130 (talk) 14:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is correct. The rule has always been words that end in S do not add a second S after the apostrophe. It's been that way for at least 50 years, with no signs of change in sight. The correct title should be "Brooks' Law". Iff i can figure out how, i will correct it.dunerat (talk) 20:04, 26 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Google has "Brooks' Law" to "Brooks's Law" at 25,000 to 3,000. Several of the references call it Brooks'. I think this is pretty much against conventions for grammar. Ocaasi (talk) 17:26, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Open Source Software Development

The wording of the section ("Some would claim") irks me. Is it worthy of a weasel-word tag or a citation/reference needed one? 85.216.249.92 15:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:WEASEL would seem to support your irk. However, someone appears to have edited that out, and now we have what appears to be a factual claim. The section might still need some work. --Teratornis 17:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The claim is misleading. The Cathedral and the Bazaar suggests that Brooks's Law really only applies to the core developer group, and adding a large number of minor contributors does not cause a significant productivity penalty. (Of course, Raymond asserts this as fact without providing any evidence.) --70.92.156.183 04:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If Brook Law doesn't apply to it, why it's commented here? The name of the section have nothing to see with the article. Maybe would be more adecuate to move this part to the open source article as it talks more about open source than Brook law. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.87.170.71 (talk) 21:20, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Misconceptions Section

I've remove a section title "Misconceptions" consisting of the following paragraph. I think the paragraph is not coherent (since it talks about two different things in its two sentences), and it's not sourced at all. If someone wants to re-add it in some better form, feel free. -- Ddxc (talk) 20:45, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A commonly understood implication of Brooks's law is that it will be more productive to employ a smaller number of very talented (and highly paid) programmers on a project than to employ a larger number of less talented programmers, since individual programmer productivity can vary greatly between highly talented and efficient programmers and less talented programmers. However, Brooks's law does not mean that starving a project of resources by employing fewer programmers beyond a certain point will get it done faster.

References/Citations

This article was marked in December 2007 as "unreferenced"; however, it cites the main book on the subject ("The Mythical Man Month", by Fred Brooks himself), and also other articles. What is missing? It's safe (or proper) to remove the "unreferenced" warning? CarlosRibeiro (talk) 22:04, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We need secondary sources. I've updated the tag. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:17, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've heavily revised the article, and included some references that I believe are authoritative. Can the warning be removed now? CarlosRibeiro (talk) 13:52, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Thanks for your work on this! Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:56, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Brooks's Law and Open Source

I rewrote the section on "Open Source", adding explicit citations of Eric Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" paper that point to the specific chapter that is posted online. I don't know if the citations were added "the right way". Please feel free to correct it, I'll be glad to learn how to do it. CarlosRibeiro (talk) 23:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the section on "commodities" for now, pending better referencing. Raymond certainly said it, but he's a primary source for the claim. I haven't seen it seriously argued. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:56, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why shouldn't the entire Open Source section be replaced by a single sentence saying that inasmuch as Brooks's law is about schedules, and open source projects don't have schedules, the law doesn't apply (or is irrelevant, or whatever the wording needs to be)? What is the relevance of all the points, as interesting as they may be, about open source? Rochkind (talk) 19:48, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I personally suggest removing the section. I think it doesn't say anything which hasn't been said before it. Cristan (talk) 14:01, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Number of different communication channels

> The number of different communication channels increases along with the square of the number of people; doubling the number of people results in four times as many different conversations.

This is not precisely correct. For N people, there are C(N,2) different communication channels, and not N^2 channels. Doubling the number of people results in C(2N,2) communication channels, or an increase in "C(2N/2) / C(N/2)" times as many conversations.

For instance, with four people, there are C(4,2) = 6 communication channels. Doubleing four people to eight results in C(8,2) = 28 communication channels.

This is less than a squared increase in the number of people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.0.193.29 (talk) 20:16, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]