I heard a quote once, but can't track it down.
Something along the lines of:
"all Software Methodologies can produce successful projects, and all
Methodologies have projects that fail"
Could've been Capers Jones, Jim Highsmith or another of the well known
project management experts.
The point he was making: good people trump bad process & vice-versa.
Alistair Cockburn writes definitively on "per project methodologies":
<http://alistair.cockburn.us/Just-in-time+methodology+construction>
You've raised many correct and valuable points about professional
programming - it's not enough to just get something into production,
it's probably going to run for *decades*. Little things like Design,
Quality and Maintainability matter in the long term - but aren't
measured or reported.
I've seen just one study looking at the common factors in IT departments
that succeed. The factor they found?
- Project Reviews
Pretty much the conclusion Jerry Weinberg came to in the early 70's (and
wrote about extensively)
See "Handbook of Walkthroughs, Inspections, and Technical Reviews:
Evaluating Programs, Projects, and Products"
Alistair Cockburn quotes Norm Kerth's book on the subject as well.
[Norm was one of the leading lights in the Object Oriented world in the
90's. He may have gone onto Agile or XP]
Here is a working Program/Project Manager, Glen B. Alleman, who works
for NASA amongst others and they've made Agile work for them. I've found
his writing concrete, useful and insightful.
<http://herdingcats.typepad.com/>
<http://www.niwotridge.com/>
Summary:
You're right: poor programmers produce poor code, not withstanding any
Methodology.
Hope this helps
s
rml...@gmail.com wrote on 23/9/09 3:33 AM:
> I was at a company that still embraced the agile software model. I
> have a negative impression of agile development for a number of
> reasons.
>
> <snip>
>
> Bob
>
>
> On Sep 19, 10:13 am, DrQ <redr...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> SJ Mercury News columnist Chris O'Brien's interviews Vivek Kundrahttp://bit.ly/1bv1LW
>>
>> Agile software, rapid prototyping, cloud computing, . . . rather than
>> waiting for perfection, Kundra launches beta versions, expecting
>> improvements later. Gov 2.0 setting the pace for Corp. America IT?
>>
>
>
--
Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist.
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA
Good points. Agile & XP aren't "The Silver Bullet", as Fred Brooks
commented in the mid-80's.
I remember in the mid 80's when zillions of "ground-breaking & new"
68000-based Unix boxes were coming out of Silicon Valley, that the hype
in Software was "Unix will improve productivity 10-fold".
Good people got good results. Everyone else just kept doing things the
same way.
There'd be huge promises from 4GL's and in the early nineties people
were being suckered by "CASE" (Comp. Aided Software Engineering) - with
the promise of "click on the pretty pictures and it'll generate
thousands of lines of perfect code".
yeah, that went well... "Lower-CASE and "upper-CASE" were the first
There have been sooo many fads, fashions and enthusiasms in
Computing/Programming that they can't be inventoried.
I looked at this a while back when someone famous did a collection.
My conclusion was you can't pick the winners...
Fortran & COBOL took years to go from 'fad' to staple.
PL/1 and ADA had immense backing and got used in large/complex projects
- and still remain a sideshow.
Recently a friend commented that new technologies get picked up and
embraced (like GOSIP vs TCP/IP) when
a) they work and
b) the price/availability is right.
I can't shed light on why the market picks what it picks...
I think the central question is:
Why don't 'good' ideas get picked up, and why aren't what's picked up
'good'?
The corollary is:
After decades of hype & unrealised claims,
where's Industry Scepticism and proof-of-claims demands?
There has been a very important anniversary slip by unremarked.
"Software Engineering" turned 40.
The original NATO conferences were in Germany, 1968 and Rome, 1969.
<http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/>
The SE field has failed to address/correct *in practice* the central
issues raised in those first papers.
[E.g. the Microsoft Longhorn 'Reset' in 2004. Predictable and Inexcusable.]
Taking a long view, the questions aren't about Methodologies but:
- Why isn't the Profession demonstrably improving
[ie. Show me the Numbers]
- Why aren't Lessons Learned by each generation passed on?
[In fact, it seems the reverse is happening in general practice]
- Why do Managers, Businesses, Educators and Government do nothing to
correct this?
[Not because they don't complain enough or want better]
That better is possible is shown by the Aviation industry.
Those in developed countries understand that Safety and Profitability
are both necessary and related.
The exception making the rule is third world countries like Indonesia.
Same planes, same technology, same training but huge numbers of accidents.
You can look up figures for incidents, injuries & deaths per route-mile,
passenger-mile and take-off.
Plus the NTSB/FAA have detailed accident investigations on-line.
Aviation has improved because they count the numbers, investigate causes
of faults & failures and woe betide anyone that repeats a known error or
goes "off script" and causes problems.
They care about Industry Performances and can make penalties stick.
Yep - the Agile/XP debate is real and useful. I'm encouraging you to
keep on with that.
But unless you think of a new angle, it will follow many, many fine
efforts into obscurity like the SEI, CMM, TSP, ...
regards
steve j
metasoft wrote on 24/9/09 2:29 AM:
>> rml...@gmail.com wrote on 23/9/09 3:33 AM:
>>
>>
>>> I was at a company that still embraced the agile software model. I
>>> have a negative impression of agile development for a number of
>>> reasons.
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>> Bob
>>>
>>> On Sep 19, 10:13 am, DrQ <redr...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> SJ Mercury News columnist Chris O'Brien's interviews Vivek Kundrahttp://bit.ly/1bv1LW
>>>>
>>>> Agile software, rapid prototyping, cloud computing, . . . rather than
>>>> waiting for perfection, Kundra launches beta versions, expecting
>>>> improvements later. Gov 2.0 setting the pace for Corp. America IT?
--
Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist.
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA
metasoft wrote on 24/9/09 2:29 AM:hi bob, i'm in complete agreement w/ steve w.r.t. it's the people that counts. a good process reduce additional wastes and makes the team operates more efficiently. unfortunately, misuse is always possible, especially without understanding or critical review. IMHO, agile methods have some assumptions that is not stated sufficiently clear up front. <snip> and the sr. programmer who showed me said he was shown the way earlier too, so many agile practices are not all that new, but was undocumented. wen
rml...@gmail.com wrote on 23/9/09 3:33 AM:I was at a company that still embraced the agile software model. I have a negative impression of agile development for a number of reasons. <snip> Bob On Sep 19, 10:13 am, DrQ <redr...@yahoo.com> wrote:SJ Mercury News columnist Chris O'Brien's interviews Vivek Kundrahttp://bit.ly/1bv1LW Agile software, rapid prototyping, cloud computing, . . . rather than waiting for perfection, Kundra launches beta versions, expecting improvements later. Gov 2.0 setting the pace for Corp. America IT?