The Mythical Man-Month
E32457
The Mythical Man-Month is a classic software engineering book by Fred Brooks that explores the challenges of large-scale software projects and famously argues that adding manpower to a late project makes it later.
All labels observed (5)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Mythical Man-Month canonical | 8 |
| Brooks's law | 3 |
| No Silver Bullet | 1 |
| The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition | 1 |
| mythical man-month | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T249050 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Mythical Man-Month Context triple: [Addison-Wesley, hasPublished, The Mythical Man-Month]
-
A.
Computer Lib / Dream Machines
Computer Lib / Dream Machines is a pioneering 1974 book by Ted Nelson that passionately advocates for personal computing, hypertext, and user empowerment in the digital age.
-
B.
As We May Think
As We May Think is a seminal 1945 essay by Vannevar Bush that envisioned hypertext-like information systems and profoundly influenced the development of modern computing and the internet.
-
C.
Man-Computer Symbiosis
Man-Computer Symbiosis is a seminal 1960 essay by J. C. R. Licklider that envisioned interactive, cooperative partnerships between humans and computers, laying conceptual foundations for modern interactive computing and the internet.
-
D.
The GNU Manifesto
The GNU Manifesto is Richard Stallman’s foundational essay outlining the philosophy, goals, and rationale for the free software movement and the GNU Project.
-
E.
The Advancement of Learning
The Advancement of Learning is a 1605 philosophical treatise by Francis Bacon that argues for the systematic reform and expansion of human knowledge through empirical inquiry and the scientific method.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Mythical Man-Month Target entity description: The Mythical Man-Month is a classic software engineering book by Fred Brooks that explores the challenges of large-scale software projects and famously argues that adding manpower to a late project makes it later.
-
A.
Computer Lib / Dream Machines
Computer Lib / Dream Machines is a pioneering 1974 book by Ted Nelson that passionately advocates for personal computing, hypertext, and user empowerment in the digital age.
-
B.
As We May Think
As We May Think is a seminal 1945 essay by Vannevar Bush that envisioned hypertext-like information systems and profoundly influenced the development of modern computing and the internet.
-
C.
Man-Computer Symbiosis
Man-Computer Symbiosis is a seminal 1960 essay by J. C. R. Licklider that envisioned interactive, cooperative partnerships between humans and computers, laying conceptual foundations for modern interactive computing and the internet.
-
D.
The GNU Manifesto
The GNU Manifesto is Richard Stallman’s foundational essay outlining the philosophy, goals, and rationale for the free software movement and the GNU Project.
-
E.
The Advancement of Learning
The Advancement of Learning is a 1605 philosophical treatise by Francis Bacon that argues for the systematic reform and expansion of human knowledge through empirical inquiry and the scientific method.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
non-fiction book ⓘ software engineering book ⓘ |
| anniversaryEditionPublicationYear | 1995 ⓘ |
| author |
Fred Brooks
ⓘ
Fred Brooks ⓘ
surface form:
Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
|
| centralThesis | adding manpower to a late software project makes it later ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| discussesConcept |
communication overhead in teams
ⓘ
conceptual integrity ⓘ documentation in software projects ⓘ estimation in software projects ⓘ prototyping ⓘ second-system effect ⓘ software project scheduling ⓘ surgical team organization ⓘ system testing and debugging ⓘ |
| explores | challenges of large-scale software projects ⓘ |
| famousFor |
The Mythical Man-Month
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Brooks's law
|
| format | collection of essays ⓘ |
| genre |
professional literature
ⓘ
technical literature ⓘ |
| hasEdition |
The Mythical Man-Month
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition
|
| hasEssay |
The Mythical Man-Month
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
No Silver Bullet
The Mythical Man-Month self-link ⓘ |
| hasQuote |
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
ⓘ
Conceptual integrity is the most important consideration in system design. ⓘ Plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow. ⓘ |
| influencedField |
agile software development thinking
ⓘ
project management methodologies ⓘ software engineering practice ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| notableIdea |
The Mythical Man-Month
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Brooks's law
importance of conceptual integrity in design ⓘ second-system effect ⓘ surgical team model for software projects ⓘ |
| proposes |
The Mythical Man-Month
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Brooks's law
|
| publicationYear | 1975 ⓘ |
| publisher | Addison-Wesley ⓘ |
| subject |
computer science
ⓘ
large-scale software projects ⓘ project management ⓘ software development ⓘ software engineering ⓘ software project management ⓘ systems engineering ⓘ |
| targetAudience |
computer scientists
ⓘ
project managers ⓘ software engineers ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Mythical Man-Month Description of subject: The Mythical Man-Month is a classic software engineering book by Fred Brooks that explores the challenges of large-scale software projects and famously argues that adding manpower to a late project makes it later.
Referenced by (14)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition
this entity surface form:
Brooks's law
this entity surface form:
Brooks's law
this entity surface form:
No Silver Bullet
this entity surface form:
Brooks's law
No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering
→
relatedWork
→
The Mythical Man-Month
ⓘ
this entity surface form:
mythical man-month