No Silver Bullet Reloaded

Abstract

At XP2017 in Köln, a panel was convened to discuss the classic 1987 IEEE Software paper by Frederick P. Brooks, "No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents in Software Engineering." The ideas presented in his paper have influenced several generations of software developers. Brooks emphasized the notions of essential complexity and accidental complexity, and he offered suggestions for promising approaches to software development. While his approaches are linked to what we now recognize as "agile practices," panelists offered an implicit caveat that they must be done with discipline to avoid increased accidental complexity. Panelists also observed that agile development itself is not a "silver bullet".