#9 in the ranking · technical · 1975
The Mythical Man-Month
The Mythical Man-Month, by Fred Brooks, published in 1975, is cited by 278 people in conversations on Hacker News, Stack Exchange and TabNews. It shows up in all 20 years, from 2007 to 2026, with the most mentions in 2022. People who cite it also cite The Pragmatic Programmer, Code Complete and Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.
Year by year
Peak: 36 mentions in 2022
Mentions per year: 2007: 6; 2008: 11; 2009: 6; 2010: 20; 2011: 19; 2012: 13; 2013: 12; 2014: 6; 2015: 13; 2016: 20; 2017: 15; 2018: 31; 2019: 23; 2020: 17; 2021: 11; 2022: 36; 2023: 19; 2024: 20; 2025: 9; 2026: 3.
Where it’s cited
What people write
From a text search; it doesn’t yet tell recommending apart from just mentioning.
- Mythical Man-Month (the classic, a little outdated but the principles still ring very true)
Hacker News · 2022 · in “Ask HN: Best books on managing software complexity?” · see comment ↗
There are old favorites like 'mythical man month' that I'm generally aware of, though never actually read personally, and whole new blogs and videos to sift through.
Hacker News · 2021 · in “High Performance Organizations Reading List” · see comment ↗
Surely, Mythical Man Month and GoF qualify as classics of software engineering.
Hacker News · 2020 · in “Books I recommend to my software engineering students” · see comment ↗
And then there's the classics - mythical man month, code complete, pragmatic programmer etc.
Stack Exchange · 2012 · in “Best books on the theory and practice of software architecture?” · by Rocklan · CC BY-SA 3.0 · see comment ↗
I highly recommend reading Charles Petzold's Code The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software and of course the Mythical Man Month by Frederick P.
Stack Exchange · 2011 · in “What are some things you have read that inspired and guided you as a programmer?” · by Nodey The Node Guy · CC BY-SA 2.5 · see comment ↗
While I agree that many of the books above are must-reads (Pragmatic Programmer, Mythical Man-Month, Art of Computer Programming, and SICP come to mind immediately), I'd like to go in a slightly different direction and recommend…
Stack Exchange · 2008 · in “What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?” · by joel.neely · CC BY-SA 2.5 · see comment ↗
De tech, o melhor livro na minha opinião é o MMM - O Mítico Homem Mês - É incrível como depois de um tempo como programador entendemos que a linguagem de programação que usamos é o menor dos problemas, e coisas como projeto,…
TabNews · 2023 · in “📚 [Compartilhe sua Leitura] Livros Transformam Vidas - Qual livro você já leu e indicaria?” · see comment ↗
Tem um livro que recomendo muito, li em inglês mas recentemente decobri que existe uma edição em português Mythical Man-Month, The: Essays on Software Engineering
TabNews · 2022 · see comment ↗
| 6 | The Mythical Man-Month | Frederick P.
TabNews · 2026 · in “Os 15 livros mais recomendados para devs segundo 100 fontes.” · see comment ↗
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