Frederick P. Brooks Jr. Reviews

Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., is Kenan Professor of Computer Science in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He had been also an architect of the IBM Stretch and Harvest computers. He had been Corporate Project Manager for the System/360, such as evolution of the System/360 computer family hardware and also the decision to change computer byte size from 6 to 8 pieces. Then he managed the first evolution of the Operating System/360 software suite: operating system, 16 compilers, communications, and utilities.

He also founded the UNC Department of Computer Science in 1964 and chaired it for 20 years. His research there was in computer architecture, software engineering, and interactive 3-D computer images (protein visualization graphics and "virtual reality"). His best-known novels are The Mythical Man-Month (1975, 1995); Computer Architecture: Concepts and Evolution (with G.A. Blaauw, 1997); and The Design of Design (2010).

Dr. Brooks has received the National Medal of Technology, the A.M. Turing award of the ACM, the Bower Award and Prize of the Franklin Institute, the John von Neumann Medal of the IEEE, and many others. He is a member of the U.S. National Academies of Engineering and of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Academy of Engineering (U.K.) and in the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He became a Christian at age 31 and has since taught an adult Sunday school class for 35 years. He chaired the Executive Committee for its 1973 Research Triangle Billy Graham Crusade. He also Mrs. Nancy Greenwood Brooks are faculty advisors to some grad student chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. They have three children and nine grandchildren.

Frederick P. Brooks Jr. Quality Chart