Editing Fred Brooks

{{Short description|American computer scientist (1931–2022)}}
{{Redirect|Frederick Brooks|other people}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2022}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Fred Brooks
| birth_name        = Frederick Phillips Brooks Jr.
| image             = Fred Brooks (cropped square).jpg
| caption           = Brooks in 2007 
| birth_date        = {{Birth date|1931|04|19|mf=y}}
| birth_place       = [[Durham, North Carolina]], U.S.
| death_date        = {{Death date and age|2022|11|17|1931|04|19}}
| death_place=[[Chapel Hill, North Carolina]], U.S.
| field             = {{ubl |[[Computer science]] |[[Operating system]]s |[[Software engineering]]}}
| education         = {{ubl |[[Duke University]] ([[Bachelor of Science|BS]]) |[[Harvard University]] ([[Master of Science|MS]], [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]])}}
| thesis_title      = The Analytic Design of Automatic Data Processing Systems
| thesis_url        = https://www.proquest.com/docview/301934402
| thesis_year       = 1956
| workplaces = [[IBM]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brooks |first=F. P. |year=1960 |title=The execute operations—a fourth mode of instruction sequencing |journal=Communications of the ACM |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=168–170 |doi=10.1145/367149.367168 |s2cid=37725430 |doi-access=free}}</ref><br/>[[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]]<br/>[[Duke University]]<br/>[[Harvard University]]
| known_for         = {{ubl |[[OS/360]] |''[[The Mythical Man-Month]]''<ref name="mmm"/>}}
| spouse            = {{marriage|Nancy Lee Greenwood|1956}}
| children          = 3
| prizes            = {{Plainlist|
<!--include only awards with a dedicated Wikipedia article-->
* [[IEEE John von Neumann Medal]] (1993)
* [[ACM Fellow]] (1994)
* [[Turing Award]] (1999)
* [[Member of the National Academy of Sciences]] (2001)
* [[Turing Lecture]] (2005)}}
| doctoral_advisor  = [[Howard H. Aiken]]<ref name="mathgene"/>
| doctoral_students = [[Andrew Glassner]]<ref name="mathgene"/>
| website           = {{Official URL}}
}}

'''Frederick Phillips Brooks Jr.''' (April 19, 1931 – November 17, 2022) was an American [[Computer architecture|computer architect]], [[Software engineering|software engineer]], and [[computer scientist]], best known for [[Project management|managing]] development of [[IBM]]'s [[System/360]] family of [[mainframe computer]]s and the [[OS/360]] software support package, then later writing candidly about those experiences in his seminal book ''[[The Mythical Man-Month]]''.<ref name="mmm"/>

In 1976, Brooks was elected to the [[National Academy of Engineering]] for "contributions to computer system design and the development of academic programs in computer sciences".<ref>{{cite web |title=NAE Website – Dr. Frederick P. Brooks |url=https://www.nae.edu/29644/Dr-Frederick-P-Brooks-Jr |publisher=National Academy of Engineering |access-date=May 21, 2021}}</ref>

Brooks received many awards, including the [[National Medal of Technology]] in 1985 and the [[Turing Award]] in 1999.<ref name="dblp">{{DBLP|name=Frederick P. Brooks Jr.}}</ref><ref name="Shustek2015">{{Cite journal |last1=Shustek |first1=Len |author1-link=Len Shustek |year=2015 |title=An interview with Fred Brooks |journal=Communications of the ACM |volume=58 |issue=11 |pages=36–40 |doi=10.1145/2822519 |issn=0001-0782 |s2cid=44303152}}</ref>

==Education==
Born on April 19, 1931, in [[Durham, North Carolina]],<ref name="TuringAward">{{cite web |last1=Booch |first1=Grady |title=Frederick Brooks - A.M. Turing Award Laureate |url=https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/brooks_1002187.cfm |website=amturing.acm.org |publisher=[[Association for Computing Machinery]] |access-date=November 20, 2022 |date=1999}}</ref> he attended [[Duke University]], graduating in 1953 with a [[Bachelor of Science]] degree in [[physics]], and he received a [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] in [[applied mathematics]] ([[computer science]]) from [[Harvard University]] in 1956, supervised by [[Howard H. Aiken|Howard Aiken]].<ref name="mathgene">{{MathGenealogy|id= 25260}}</ref>

Brooks served as the graduate teaching assistant for [[Kenneth E. Iverson|Ken Iverson]] at Harvard's graduate program in "automatic data processing", the first such program in the world.<ref>{{Cite journal |first1=Kenneth E. |last1=Iverson |date=June 1954 |title=Graduate Instruction and Research |url=http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/GradIR.htm |journal=Proceedings of the First Conference on Training Personnel for the Computing Machine Field |access-date=April 9, 2016 |editor=Arvid W. Jacobson}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |first1=Kenneth E. |last1=Iverson |date=December 1991 |title=A Personal View of APL |url=http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APLPersonalView.htm |journal=IBM Systems Journal |volume=30 |pages=582–593 |doi=10.1147/sj.304.0582 |access-date=April 9, 2016 |number=4}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Makin' Numbers |date=1999 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-03263-6 |editor-first1=I. Bernard |editor-last1= Cohen |editor-link1=I. Bernard Cohen |editor-first2=Gregory W. |editor-last2=Welch}}</ref>

==Career and research==
Brooks joined [[IBM]] in 1956, working in [[Poughkeepsie, New York]], and [[Yorktown, New York]]. He worked on the architecture of the [[IBM 7030 Stretch]], a $10 million scientific supercomputer of which nine were sold, and the [[IBM 7950 Harvest]] computer for the National Security Agency.  Subsequently, he became manager for developing the [[IBM System/360]] family of computers and the [[OS/360 and successors|OS/360]] software package. During this time he coined the term "[[computer architecture]]".<ref name="TuringAward"/>

In 1964, Brooks accepted an invitation to come to the [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]] and founded the university's computer science department. He chaired it for 20 years. {{As of|2013}} he was still engaged in active research there, mainly in [[Virtual reality|virtual environments]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Brooks |first1=Frederick P. Jr. |date=1999 |title=What's Real About Virtual Reality |url=http://www.cs.unc.edu/~brooks/WhatsReal.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000818152648/http://www.cs.unc.edu/~brooks/WhatsReal.pdf |archive-date=2000-08-18 |url-status=live |journal=IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications |volume=19 |issue=6 |pages=16–27 |doi=10.1109/38.799723 |s2cid=3235380 |access-date=January 22, 2015}}</ref> and [[scientific visualization]].<ref name="IBM archive">{{Cite web |date=January 23, 2003 |title=IBM Archives – Frederick P. Brooks Jr. |url=http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/builders/builders_brooksjr.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060904124939/http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/builders/builders_brooksjr.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 4, 2006 |website=IBM |access-date=August 6, 2010}}</ref> The Brooks Computer Science Building on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus is named in his honor.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Remembering Department Founder Dr. Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. |url=https://cs.unc.edu/news-article/remembering-department-founder-dr-frederick-p-brooks-jr/ |access-date=2024-09-19 |website=Computer Science |language=en-US}}</ref>

A few years after leaving IBM, he wrote ''[[The Mythical Man-Month]]''. The seed for the book was planted by IBM's then-CEO [[Thomas J. Watson Jr.]], who asked in Brooks's exit interview why it was so much harder to manage software projects than hardware projects. In this book, Brooks made the now-famous statement: "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later", which has since come to be known as [[Brooks's law]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=McConnell |first1=Steve |author1-link=Steve McConnell |title=From the Editor: Brooks' Law Repealed |website=www.computer.org |date=1999 |volume=16 |issue=November/December 1999 |pages=6–8 |doi=10.1109/MS.1999.10032 |url=https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/so/1999/06/s6006/13rRUEgs2JV |access-date=November 20, 2022 |publisher=IEEE Computer Society |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221120155655/https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/so/1999/06/s6006/13rRUEgs2JV |archive-date=November 20, 2022 |via=stevemcconnell.com |url-status=bot: unknown}}</ref> In addition to ''The Mythical Man-Month'', Brooks is also known for the paper [[No Silver Bullet|"No Silver Bullet – Essence and Accident in Software Engineering"]].<ref name="NoAgBullet">{{Cite journal |last=Brooks |first=F. P. Jr. |year=1987 |title=No Silver Bullet – Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering |url=http://faculty.salisbury.edu/~xswang/Research/Papers/SERelated/no-silver-bullet.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004020418/http://faculty.salisbury.edu/~xswang/Research/Papers/SERelated/no-silver-bullet.pdf |archive-date=2012-10-04 |url-status=live |journal=Computer |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=10–19 |citeseerx=10.1.1.117.315 |doi=10.1109/MC.1987.1663532 |s2cid=372277}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Grier |first1=David Alan |author1-link=David Alan Grier (writer) |title=There Is Still No Silver Bullet |journal=Computer |date=February 2021 |volume=54 |issue=2 |pages=60–62 |doi=10.1109/MC.2020.3042682 |s2cid=231992114 |url=https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/co/2021/02/09353507/1r8krp0NNK0 |access-date=November 20, 2022 |quote=No article has been so central to the discussion as "No Silver Bullet" by Frederick P. Brooks. Yet, almost 35 years after he wrote this contribution to knowledge, Brooks's observation remains true.|doi-access=free}}</ref>

In 2004 in a talk at the [[Computer History Museum]] and also in a 2010 interview in [[Wired (magazine)|''Wired'']] magazine, Brooks was asked "What do you consider your greatest technological achievement?" Brooks responded, "The most important single decision I ever made was to change the IBM 360 series from a 6-[[bit]] [[byte]] to an [[8-bit computing|8-bit]] byte, thereby enabling the use of lowercase letters. That change propagated everywhere."<ref>{{Cite magazine |last1=Kelly |first1=Kevin |author1-link=Kevin Kelly (editor) |date=July 28, 2010 |title=Master Planner: Fred Brooks Shows How to Design Anything |url=https://www.wired.com/2010/07/ff-fred-brooks/ |magazine=Wired |access-date=April 8, 2019}}</ref>

A "20th anniversary" edition of ''The Mythical Man-Month'' with four additional chapters was published in 1995.<ref>{{Cite web |editor1-last=Green |editor1-first=Bob |date=1995–2004 |title=The Mythical Man-Month, A Book Review |url=http://www.robelle.com/smugbook/manmonth.html |website=Robelle Solutions Technology |access-date=August 6, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Bartlett |first1=Roscoe A. |title=Software Engineering Reading List |url=https://bartlettroscoe.github.io/reading-list/#mythical_man_month_2th_1995 |website=github.io |access-date=November 20, 2022 |language=en |date=2008}}</ref>

As well as ''The Mythical Man-Month'',<ref name="mmm">{{Cite book |last1=Brooks |first1=Frederick P. |year=1975 |url=https://archive.org/details/mythicalmanmonth00broo |title=The mythical man-month: essays on software engineering |publisher=Addison-Wesley |isbn=978-0-201-00650-6 |location=Reading, Massachusetts |url-access=registration}}</ref> Brooks has authored or co-authored many books and [[peer review]]ed papers<ref name="dblp"/> including ''Automatic Data Processing'',<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Iverson |first1=Kenneth E. |author1-link=Kenneth E. Iverson |last2=Brooks |first2=Frederick P. |title=Automatic data processing: System/360 edition |publisher=Wiley |year=1969 |isbn=978-0-471-10605-0 |location=New York}}</ref> "[[No Silver Bullet]]",<ref name="NoAgBullet"/> ''Computer Architecture'',<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Brooks |first1=Frederick P. |last2=Blaauw |first2=Gerrit A. |author2-link=Gerrit Blaauw |year=1997 |title=Computer architecture: concepts and evolution |publisher=Addison-Wesley |isbn=978-0-201-10557-5 |location=Boston}}</ref> and ''[[The Design of Design]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Brooks |first1=Frederick P. |year=2010 |title=The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist |publisher=Addison-Wesley Professional |isbn=978-0-201-36298-5 |location=Reading, Massachusetts}}</ref>

===Service and memberships===
Brooks served on a number of US national boards and committees, including:<ref name="homepage">{{cite web |title=Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. |website=UNC Computer Science |date=April 19, 2007 |url=http://www.cs.unc.edu/~brooks/ |access-date=November 19, 2022 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20210828091748/http://www.cs.unc.edu/~brooks/ |archive-date=August 28, 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>
* [[Defense Science Board]] (1983–86)
* Member, Artificial Intelligence Task Force (1983–84)
* Chairman, Military Software Task Force (1985–87)
* Member, Computers in Simulation and Training Task Force (1986–87)
* [[National Science Board]] (1987–92)

===Awards and honors===
In chronological order:<ref name="homepage"/>

{{div col}}
* Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (1968)
* [[W. Wallace McDowell Award]] for Outstanding Contribution to the Computer Art, IEEE Computer Group (1970)
* Computer Sciences Distinguished Information Services Award, Information Technology Professionals (1970)
* [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] for studies on computer architecture and human factors of computer systems, [[University of Cambridge]], England (1975)
* Member, [[National Academy of Engineering]] (1976)
* Fellow, [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] (1976)
* Computer Pioneer Award, [[IEEE Computer Society]] (1982)
* [[National Medal of Technology and Innovation]] (1985)
* Thomas Jefferson Award, [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]] (1986)
* Distinguished Service Award, [[Association for Computing Machinery]] (1987)
* Harry Goode Memorial Award, [[American Federation of Information Processing Societies]] (1989)
* Foreign Member, [[Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]] (1991)<ref>{{Cite web |title=F.P. Brooks |url=https://www.knaw.nl/en/members/foreign-members/3952 |access-date=July 17, 2015 |publisher=Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences |archive-date=July 21, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150721042855/https://www.knaw.nl/en/members/foreign-members/3952 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
* Honorary Doctor of Technical Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich (1991)
* [[IEEE John von Neumann Medal]], Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (1993)
* [[Fellow]] of the [[Association for Computing Machinery]] (1994)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://awards.acm.org/award-recipients/brooks_1002187|website=acm.org|title=Fred Brooks ACM awards}}</ref>
* [[Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society]] (DFBCS) (1994)
* International [[Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering]] (FREng), UK (1994)
* [[Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science#SCS honors and awards|Allen Newell Award]], Association for Computing Machinery (1994)<ref name=brooks96>{{cite journal |last1=Brooks |first1=Frederick P. |year=1996 |title=The computer scientist as toolsmith II |journal=Communications of the ACM |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=61–68 |issn=0001-0782 |doi=10.1145/227234.227243 |s2cid=34572148 |quote=“The scientist builds in order to study; the engineer studies in order to build” |doi-access=free}}</ref>
* [[Franklin Institute Awards|Bower Award and Prize in Science]], Franklin Institute (1995)
* CyberEdge Journal Annual Sutherland Award (April 1997)
* [[Turing Award]], Association for Computing Machinery (1999)
* Member, [[National Academy of Sciences]] (2001)
* Received the [[Computer History Museum]]'s Fellow Award, for his contributions to computer architecture, operating systems, and software engineering.<ref>{{Cite web |date=March 30, 2015 |title=Frederick P. Brooks – CHM Fellow Award Winner |url=https://computerhistory.org/profile/frederick-p-brooks-jr/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250210180543/https://computerhistory.org/profile/frederick-p-brooks-jr/ |archive-date=February 10, 2025 |access-date=February 10, 2025 |publisher=Computerhistory.org}}</ref> (2001)
* [[Eckert–Mauchly Award]], Association for Computing Machinery and The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers–Computer Society (2004)
* IEEE Virtual Reality Career Award (2010)
<!-- * [[Order of the Golden Fleece]], University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ?????-->
{{div col end}}

In January 2005, he gave the [[Turing Talk|Turing Lecture]] on the subject of "Collaboration and Telecollaboration in Design".<ref>{{cite web |title=Turing Lecture – IET Conferences |url=http://conferences.theiet.org/turing/speaker/previous/index.cfm |publisher=[[Institution of Engineering and Technology]] |access-date=November 20, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906071606/http://conferences.theiet.org/turing/speaker/previous/index.cfm |archive-date=September 6, 2015 |format=web.archive.org |date=2015 |quote=2005 – Professor Fred Brooks Jr, FREng Dist. FBCS Founding Kenan Professor of Computer Science University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – Collaboration and Telecollaboration in Design}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Brooks |first1=Frederick P. |title=7th Annual Turing Lecture: Collaboration and Telecollaboration in Design |url=https://tv.theiet.org/?videoid=319 |website=tv.theiet.org |publisher=Institution of Engineering and Technology |access-date=November 20, 2022 |format=video |date=January 20, 2005}}</ref>

==Personal life==
Brooks was an evangelical Christian who was active with [[InterVarsity Christian Fellowship]].<ref name="unc">[http://cs.unc.edu/people/frederick-p-brooks-jr/ Faculty Biography] at UNC.</ref>

<!-- Along with his wife Nancy, he was instrumental in forming [[Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill]]. He chaired the school's initial Headmaster search committee, and later served on the board of trustees. He spent a year in 2012–2013 to start up an advanced physics course in the Upper School. At the time of his death, he was serving on the Board of Trustees.{{Citation needed|date=November 2022}}
-->
Brooks married Nancy Lee Greenwood in 1956. They have three children.<ref name="TuringAward"/> He named his first son after [[Kenneth E. Iverson]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Brooks |first1=Frederick P. |date=August 2006 |title=The Language, the Mind, and the Man |url=http://archive.vector.org.uk/art10001240 |journal=Vector |volume=22 |access-date=March 16, 2018 |number=3}}</ref>

Brooks died on November 17, 2022, at age 91. He had been in poor health following a stroke.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Lohr |first1=Steve |date=November 23, 2022 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/23/technology/frederick-p-brooks-jr-dead.html |title=Frederick P. Brooks Jr., Computer Design Innovator, Dies at 91 |access-date=November 24, 2022 |work=The New York Times}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last1=Grüner |first1=Sebastian |date=November 18, 2022 |title=8-Bit-Byte-Erfinder Fred Brooks gestorben |url=https://www.golem.de/news/nachruf-8-bit-byte-erfinder-fred-brooks-gestorben-2211-169865.html |access-date=November 18, 2022 |website=[[Golem.de]] |language=de}}</ref><ref name="UNC2022">{{cite news |title=Remembering Department Founder Dr. Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. |website=UNC Computer Science |date=November 18, 2022 |url=https://cs.unc.edu/news-article/remembering-department-founder-dr-frederick-p-brooks-jr/ |access-date=November 19, 2022 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221119100810/https://cs.unc.edu/news-article/remembering-department-founder-dr-frederick-p-brooks-jr/ |archive-date=November 19, 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Frederick P. Brooks Jr., 1931–2022 |url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/heraldsun/name/frederick-brooks-obituary?id=37962920 |access-date=November 20, 2022 |work=[[The Herald-Sun (Durham, North Carolina)|The Herald Sun]] |date=November 20, 2022 |format=Legacy.com}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*{{Commons category-inline}}
*{{Wikiquote-inline}}

{{Fred Brooks}}
{{APL programming language}}
{{Software engineering}}
{{Turing Award laureates}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brooks, Fred}}
[[Category:1931 births]]
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[[Category:20th-century evangelicals]]
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[[Category:American computer scientists]]
[[Category:American software engineers]]
[[Category:American technology writers]]
[[Category:Virtual reality pioneers]]
[[Category:1994 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery]]
[[Category:Fellows of the British Computer Society]]
[[Category:IBM employees]]
[[Category:IBM Research computer scientists]]
[[Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering]]
[[Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]]
[[Category:National Medal of Technology recipients]]
[[Category:Turing Award laureates]]
[[Category:University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty]]
[[Category:Duke University Trinity College of Arts and Sciences alumni]]
[[Category:Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni]]
[[Category:Writers from Durham, North Carolina]]
[[Category:20th-century American engineers]]
[[Category:21st-century American engineers]]
[[Category:20th-century American mathematicians]]
[[Category:21st-century American mathematicians]]
[[Category:20th-century American scientists]]
[[Category:21st-century American scientists]]
[[Category:Software engineering researchers]]
[[Category:American evangelicals]]