#26 in the ranking · technical · 1987
Peopleware
Peopleware, by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister, published in 1987, is cited by 160 people in conversations on Hacker News and Stack Exchange. It shows up in 19 of the 20 years, from 2007 to 2025, with the most mentions in 2010. People who cite it also cite The Mythical Man-Month, The Pragmatic Programmer and Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.
Year by year
Peak: 18 mentions in 2010
Mentions per year: 2007: 4; 2008: 6; 2009: 1; 2010: 18; 2011: 14; 2012: 10; 2013: 6; 2014: 10; 2015: 7; 2016: 16; 2017: 14; 2018: 10; 2019: 12; 2020: 14; 2021: 14; 2022: 14; 2023: 8; 2024: 10; 2025: 2; 2026: 0.
Where it’s cited
What people write
From a text search; it doesn’t yet tell recommending apart from just mentioning.
Mythical Man Month and Peopleware have been the best books I've ever purchased from a financial return on investment perspective.
Hacker News · 2022 · in “Software engineering books” · see comment ↗
The best book on the topic for me was peopleware [1].
Hacker News · 2021 · in “A reading list for new engineering managers” · see comment ↗
Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister - a great book about software projects management
Hacker News · 2013 · in “Ask HN: What interesting books are you reading now?” · see comment ↗
"Peopleware" and "Mythical Man Month" would be a couple of classics though I'm not sure how well management would take to reading either book as they may be seen as old.
Stack Exchange · 2011 · in “What's a good book to help non-technical management understand software development?” · by JB King · CC BY-SA 2.5 · see comment ↗
After your read Peopleware (a bit outdated, 1999, but is THE classic) here a more recent one from the same author (Tom DeMarco
Stack Exchange · 2010 · in “Best books on Managing a Software Development Team?” · by user2567 · CC BY-SA 2.5 · see comment ↗