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A comment on Tips for beginning systems and software engineers. Parent comment

Re:Tips for beginning systems and software engineers by komali2 on Thursday May 19, 2016 @12:41PM (#11731486)
Off-topic, but I've always felt like "silver bullet" isn't a very good metaphor to use because we keep using it sarcastically, as above. Wasn't the silver bullet the only way to stop a werewolf? Or does the phrase come from somewhere else?

Anyway maybe something like magic bean or some other "looks useful but turned out not to be" metaphor would be better, not sure which one though.

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Re:Tips for beginning systems and software engineers by kabdib on Thursday May 19, 2016 @01:18PM (#11731803)
"Silver bullet" was popularized (if not coined) by Fred Brooks in _The Mythical Man-Month_, and since that book is pretty widely read, the term is well understood. It's definitely sarcastic, but that doesn't mean it's not accurate.

[Depending on your mythology, you can kill a werewolf with a silver sword, and probably other silver objects. Poul Anderson has an interesting treatment of werewolf vulnerabilities in his collection _Operation Chaos_]

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