Junilu Lacar wrote:How the heck did I let myself get dragged into this conversation on a Friday?
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"Leadership is nature's way of removing morons from the productive flow" - Dogbert
Articles by Winston can be found here
Winston Gutkowski wrote:
Junilu Lacar wrote:There's a common thing that the best senseis I've met in Aikido dojos do when they instruct and guide students. They always say "Good, good! But here's how you can do this better." It's not that they're trying to be condescending either. They're right. Whatever seems to work for the student is really fine. But if the student wants to learn at improve their Aikido, they also need to open their mind and observe what sensei shows them.
And I doubt that your sensei would dispute this: You learn what is good by learning what is bad. I actually rather like the Chinese idea of "yin" and "yang" all being part of a universal truth combined in a single symbol (of course this could just be my Western misinterpretation of it).
In a martial art, you need to be taught what is good, because the penalties for learning what is bad are severe; but in programming there is no such restriction. You can fail as many times as you like, and computers don't judge - and it's the business of failing (assuming we learn from it, and are happy to continue) that makes us better.
However, that does NOT apply to systems or methodologies; only to people.
Junilu Lacar wrote:
In a martial art, you need to be taught what is good, because the penalties for learning what is bad are severe; but in programming there is no such restriction. You can fail as many times as you like, and computers don't judge - and it's the business of failing (assuming we learn from it, and are happy to continue) that makes us better.
Winston Gutkowski wrote:Because I didn't ask to "be part of an Agile team". Somebody - and probably someone with very little experience of programming (if any) - imposed that on me.
Did we all start out our lives as "Scrum team participants"? Did programming stop, or was it much worse, simply because nobody knew about Scrum or Agile? Are companies that DON'T use Agile prominent by their demise on any of the major Stock Exchanges?
NO.
It's one way to attack a problem, and it may well have many good points in its favour; but you're not going to convince a hoary old sceptic like me that it's a "philosophy", nor that I need to buy in to any "social" BS that surrounds it, in order to be a better programmer than I was already.
Winston
No more Blub for me, thank you, Vicar.
chris webster wrote:So maybe it's time for the Agile movement to clean its own house and get rid of the cultists, before preaching to the rest of us: we need an Agile Reformation.
Junilu Lacar wrote:
chris webster wrote:So maybe it's time for the Agile movement to clean its own house and get rid of the cultists, before preaching to the rest of us: we need an Agile Reformation.
You're going to make me cry, Chris. Seriously. I feel for you guys because I've been there.
No more Blub for me, thank you, Vicar.
chris webster wrote:
Right now the UK government is heavily promoting the use of Agile methods for government IT projects, which may well be an excellent idea. But the poster-child project they chose for this is one that turned into a colossal failure:
http://central-government.governmentcomputing.com/news/nao-review-critical-of-defra-and-gds-over-cap-programme-4740462
chris webster wrote:Instead, what we experience is an Agile cargo-cult imposed on us by managers who understand nothing about software development but who buy into the cultists' marketing that "Agile is the answer, now what's your problem?".
"Leadership is nature's way of removing morons from the productive flow" - Dogbert
Articles by Winston can be found here
No more Blub for me, thank you, Vicar.
chris webster wrote:Cargo Cult Software Engineering is worth reading in this context.
I'm totally persuaded by Junilu that I would find his team's version of Agile very productive...
"Leadership is nature's way of removing morons from the productive flow" - Dogbert
Articles by Winston can be found here
chris webster wrote:Right now the UK government is heavily promoting the use of Agile methods for government IT projects, which may well be an excellent idea. But the poster-child project they chose for this is one that turned into a colossal failure:
Paul Clapham wrote:You hear about this with large government systems because government works in public, but I'm sure that private enterprise has its graveyard of skeletons in the closet.
I'm sure that bad process helps to produce failure, but I'm not sure that good process is sufficient to prevent it. It's just a hard problem.
Winston Gutkowski wrote:
And furthermore, Junilu has plainly made it WORK, because he is a good professional in all the ways that I respect.
Maybe I'm just too old and ornery...![]()
Paul Clapham wrote:I'm sure that bad process helps to produce failure, but I'm not sure that good process is sufficient to prevent it...
"Leadership is nature's way of removing morons from the productive flow" - Dogbert
Articles by Winston can be found here
Winston Gutkowski wrote:Agreed. I just wonder if we shouldn't start an "Emperor's New Clothes" thread to discover all the companies selling products or "methodologies" or systems or courses that claim they can tell us the "good process"
Junilu Lacar wrote:I'm guessing that's in reference to C.A.R. Hoare's 1980 Turing Award lecture? Good choice.
"Leadership is nature's way of removing morons from the productive flow" - Dogbert
Articles by Winston can be found here
Paul Clapham wrote:I think that any time you try to rewrite an old system, you have an excellent chance of failure. The old system will be full of requirements which nobody remembers why they exist, and then the people who are responsible for describing what the system is supposed to do will be in over their heads. And then you've got the new requirements, i.e. the maintenance backlog of the old system. You hear about this with large government systems because government works in public, but I'm sure that private enterprise has its graveyard of skeletons in the closet.
I'm sure that bad process helps to produce failure, but I'm not sure that good process is sufficient to prevent it. It's just a hard problem.
No more Blub for me, thank you, Vicar.
chris webster wrote:As I've ranted above, I just can't see any benefit from all this Badgile propaganda in situations like this.
"Leadership is nature's way of removing morons from the productive flow" - Dogbert
Articles by Winston can be found here
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Antonio Rafael Rodrigues wrote: As Scrum claims that you have to let your team free to produce and decide about how the things have to be done, Scrum sometimes may be used as an excuse to an incompetent manager to state a two weeks sprint, and let the team members battle among themselves to death.
Overall, Scrum is powerful, but has to be used with wisdom and sensibility, it comes to add or to summarize practices, but never to substitute. Because proximity to customers, fragmented deliveries, iterative process, were here long before Scrum come into play.
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