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Seven Things I Hate About Agile

blog.assembla.com

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Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#71

Post by dhimes »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #12

I usually vote up Agile attacks, because I love to hear developers talk about the difference between good and bad Agile. But it's getting a little old. It seems the world is full of cranky, half-informed folks who get a little coffee in them and suddenly are ready to make grand pronouncements about the entire state of things (Love the self-recursion here) Seriously, one last time. Agile is best practices around itera…

I agree with you, but personally I'm a little torqued at the 'over 50" comment. Hrmmm.

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#72

Post by kisielk »

jschuur wrote: post #27
mindcrime wrote: post #22

So who the hell are Assembla and why should anybody care what they have to say? All I'm seeing here is a lot of misinformed ranting. Sure, there's a kernel or two of truth hidden away in there, but most good rants have that. I don't see that TFA makes any sort of interesting point or arrives at any real conclusion that's helping anybody make a decision though. Oh wait, I'm almost 40, so I guess I'm too busy decaying…

Note the last line: 'If you are interested in new solutions to some of the issues listed above, please follow this blog over the next few weeks.'

Curious to see what their proposed solution to the old people problem is going to be...

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#73

Post by stcredzero »

> Old people: Agile has the smell of death on it. If you go to an “agile” event you will see few people under the age of 40 and many over 50.

This has the smell of ad-hominem on it. How about a little evaluation of the ideas?

> Most organizations which use the word "agile" are using the word precisely because they are NOT agile, and want to be more agile.

Again, this is basically just saying, "It can't be cool because the cool kids aren't in on it." How about an evaluation of the ideas, not the marketing?

> I don’t think values have anything to do with productivity or collaboration. The Americans and the Russians didn’t share many values, but they teamed up into a mighty fighting force during WWII because they shared a goal.

I abhor this attitude. You meet people who are all about "making use of you" at "startup weekend" type events. Values aren't so necessary for productivity in general, but shared values are necessary for productivity in areas where quality and attention to detail are paramount.

> If you are a vendor selling “pairs”, you have an awesome situation where you can charge twice as much, and you can easily churn guys on and off the pairs, one at a time

So you are evaluating a practice by the scummiest abuse of the practice? I think this reveals something, but not so much about the practice.

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#74

Post by smattiso »

augusto_hp wrote: post #18
S_A_P wrote: post #5

I cant decide if this article is sarcasm or not. It makes me think about how there is no methodology that is the savior of developers everywhere. You may be able to find some operational efficiency choosing one methodology over another, but at the end of the day you either have developers that can write the code, or not.

I really think this guy have had some very annoying situations on agile-teams. At least it is what pops the most out of the blog post. He actually contradicted himself a lot of times: - "old people": Being a developer for a relatively small period of time, but I really have a hard time talking about agile with old developers. At least is what happens here at São Paulo/Brazil. - "stagnation": Agile is not Scrum. How a…

Hey I am trying to recruit good devs in Sao Paulo, but I am kind of clueless where to start. If you get a chance I would love to chat. Cheers. My e-mail is stephen@lightboom.com

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#75

Post by vannevar »

jrajav wrote: post #58
vannevar wrote: post #24

What do [Scrum Masters] do? I'm sorry, but if you don't know the answer to this question, you're not familiar enough with agile to write intelligently about it. If you're going to write about a technique, you should at least know the basic concepts, whether you agree with them or not. And pretending ignorance for effect doesn't add much to the discussion.

Personally, I think one can learn enough about agile to apply it usefully without ever learning what a "scrum master" does. Maybe this goes back to the discussion of process vs. best practices.

Maybe. But it's a pretty critical role, and if no one on the team is filling it (or even aware that the role is needed), you're losing out on most of the benefit of agile. To the point where it's not really what people mean when they refer to the Agile process.

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#76

Post by JoeAltmaier »

peeters wrote: post #51

> Pair programming is like those girls that go to the restaurant bathroom together. What are they doing? Why don't you ask somebody who pairs, rather than writing an uninformed rant against it? > If you are customer, you pay twice as much and you get churn. Oh I get it, you're approaching and commenting on all of Agile from your software-as-contract-work perspective. Let me enlighten you: most software isn't sponsore…

Pair programming reminds me of the issue of trying to pair up for video games. Either you find somebody much better than you, or much worse. Because the spectrum is large, the chance of a good match is nil.

In programming the spectrum is larger. When I've been asked to program with somebody, its always been a terrific drag on my productivity. I crawl thru the day, trying to be nice, and when they go the hell home I stay late and do my real work.

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#77

Post by ExpiredLink »

ryanmolden wrote: post #28
mindcrime wrote: post #22

So who the hell are Assembla and why should anybody care what they have to say? All I'm seeing here is a lot of misinformed ranting. Sure, there's a kernel or two of truth hidden away in there, but most good rants have that. I don't see that TFA makes any sort of interesting point or arrives at any real conclusion that's helping anybody make a decision though. Oh wait, I'm almost 40, so I guess I'm too busy decaying…

Yeah, I stopped reading at "Old People", and I am not even in that demographic. Wholesale discounting all wisdom in an entire segment of people with lots of experience in the very field you work in is rarely a good idea. I mean what's up with Knuth being so old? Some young guy should finish out TAoCP and show him how its done.

And it isn't even true. 'Agile' is appropriate especially for young people who need an entertaining and motivating environment to be productive. The 'social' aspects make Agile appealing to most of them.

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#78

Post by juan_juarez »

bguthrie wrote: post #7

Pair programming was invented and evangelized by developers, and are its most ardent defenders at every vendor I know that offers Agile services. ThoughtWorks' sales folks hate selling pairs, for the obvious reason that most clients don't love the idea of buying them.

Pair programming's biggest win is that it keeps me on task & not arguing online about whether or not Agile practices work.

Re: Seven Things I Hate About Agile

#79

Post by juan_juarez »

stcredzero wrote: post #73

> Old people: Agile has the smell of death on it. If you go to an “agile” event you will see few people under the age of 40 and many over 50. This has the smell of ad-hominem on it. How about a little evaluation of the ideas ? > Most organizations which use the word "agile" are using the word precisely because they are NOT agile, and want to be more agile. Again, this is basically just saying, "It can't be cool becau…

I'd say the fact that orginizations using the work 'agile' not actually being agile goes hand in hand with old people at "agile" events. People that do it actually do it, people that want to talk about how they should be doing it just talk about it.
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