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Re^3: Nobody Expects the Agile Imposition (Part VIII): Software Craftsmanshipby BrowserUk (Patriarch) |
on Jun 15, 2015 at 06:33 UTC ( [id://1130423]=note: print w/replies, xml ) | Need Help?? |
Agile introduces effective processes to groups who haven't already stumbled upon them, or haven't learned them from experienced team members. I think that's a very fair summation. I'd go further and say that it does what pretty much all commercially sold methodologies do: it promises to short-circuit the learning process. But there are (at least) two problems with that:
These are things that can't be short-circuited. They cannot be taught, they must be learnt. They cannot be instilled; they must be acquired.Applied rote, without room for: learning by your mistakes; or master/apprentice mentoring; and by presenting all work in the singular form of user-stories; you may short-circuit a few months or a couple of years off the early learning process to obtain acceptable productivity more quickly; but you also introduce a plateau that can never be surmounted. There is no room in the system for the gifted to rise above that plateau; and no way for the level of that plateau to rise. For the company, provided they can maintain a low-level of costs, which they can because there is no basis for individuals to become worth more than the standard rate; and replacing those who feel they want more becomes a simple process because the intake requirements are so low, this is good. Known costs * numbers = fixed overhead. Exactly what the accountant wants. For the programmer looking for a career, it is all bad, unless they are one of those that would never progress beyond the most basic level anyway. Present the 'products' of these methodologies -- programmers who expect all the work to be presented to them in the form of user-stories; and to work through each work item by a rote process of: if this do that; if this do that; -- with any task that does not comply with their expectations; and they are lost; because all the learning that was short-circuited -- how to gather requirements; how to prioritise those requirements; how to adjust and adapt their tools and working practices to the process of solving those requirements -- leaves them ill-equipped or unequipped to transition to the new reality. It creates 'crisis fodder'. Young, willing, enthusiastic, (usually male) programmers that follow rote, slog through, burn long, and hard, and out. In wartime, they are called grunts. With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'
Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
I'm with torvalds on this
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice. Agile (and TDD) debunked
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