Some thoughts on No Silver Bullet

Last updated on 2012-07-14 20:49 UTC

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I was reading No Silver Bullet from Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. I was wondering about the meaning of the sentence “These gains flow from the transformation of computer manufacture from an assembly industry to a process industry”.

I want to report my first attempts to decipher this, in order to clarify myself and hopefully help others.

• First let me modernize the terminology. “Assembly industry” seems a synonym for Discrete manufacturing, the production of items by assembling more simple components (e.g. cars), while “process industry” seems a synonym for Process manufacturing, the production of items by some transformations on source components so that the output cannot be converted back (e.g. food);
• So Brooks is saying that computer manufacturing is experiencing the increase of price-performance ratio because over time computers are no more built like a simple assembly of simple parts (electronic parts and wires) but as a direct transformation of source materials into the final product (think especially about silicon transformed into CPU/SoC).
• I draw the conclusion that the process manufacturing of computers (roughly translating to miniaturization) permits to obtain better performance with relatively low work with regard to discrete manufacturing, but this is a claim for which I haven’t searched any argument.
• as other conclusions from Brooks, this seems to hold true at current days — smartphone and tablets are rapidly becoming as powerful as computer because of the process manufacturing of computers.
• the only drawback of process manufacturing of computers is that their repair is quite difficult and/or expensive — in fact, food cannot be repaired but must be thrown away

Finally, I want to point out a useful article from Poul-Henning Kamp that helps clarifying the first chapter of the Mythical Man Month.

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