rcmnd

No Silver BulletOther

by Frederick P. Brooks, 1986

Who uses, recommends or left No Silver Bullet, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.

1 person

Software developer; co-founder of Stack Overflow and Fog Creek Software, and author of the Joel on Software blog.
loved

It's probably because we read No Silver Bullet, a stunningly important essay from way back in 1986, by Frederick P. Brooks (he of Mythical Man-Month) that has proven again and again to be spot-on.

A book review of Beyond Java that opens by explaining why he trusts Brooks's 1986 essay.

2006-10-12·joelonsoftware.com ↗

Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.

The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.

A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.

What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:

Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.