2 ms·

Are you a researcher or a practitioner? The last half of your answer was much more interesting than the slogans at twenty paces we exchanged in the early part o

Are you a researcher or a practitioner? The last half of your answer was much more interesting than the slogans at twenty paces we exchanged in the early part of the discussion.

Silhouette 11y ago
I'd say I'm a practitioner, but one who has been around the block a few times and perhaps done more research than most along the way. Once upon a time I did spend several years doing fairly serious investigations into ways to improve software development processes and what evidence was out there. The majority of that work wasn't primary research, but it was fascinating and sometimes enlightening to separate advocacy from evidence, and I suppose I've maintained the habit ever since. I find some of the ideas popularised by the Agile movement particularly interesting. Often there is decent evidence of effectiveness to some degree or in some context, the kernel of a good idea, if you like. Unfortunately, there is also the whole dogmatic advocacy thing, where evangelists extrapolate beyond the evidence and the benefits get overstated. Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that you've been doing this in our discussions here. I'm happy that TDD seems to work for your organisation, I've no reason to doubt that you find it effective, and if you have any write-ups of what you've found does or doesn't work well then I'd be happy to read about it. However, I've mentored more than one junior developer who really has told me point blank that we were doing software development wrong just because we weren't following the gospel according to Bob Martin, Joel Spolsky, or whoever it is this week. That gets old, so I tend to comment when discussions get into evidence-based debate, in the hope that it will point others towards information that took me a long time to find and reconcile.
- jacques_chester 11y ago
  I hear you. I often feel the same way. Most of what coalesced into agile in the late 90s was already "in the air", just taken further and tied together. For example, it's normal now to have CI/CD. In 1996, McConnell listed "daily build and smoke" as a best practice, describing it as the "heartbeat" of a project. Without it, you're dead. It didn't have a sexy name it was slow and fragile, but the concept was there. Or, variously, sprints or iterations. Various spiral models existed before Scrum and XP became the talk of the town; just nobody tried it. This was a good discussion. I continue to disagree with you about the parallels you drew and what I see as a line of argument that adoption of a practice is commensurate solely with its value and effectiveness. However I now appreciate why you were forceful. I fit a pattern you recognise.

Are you a researcher or a practitioner? The last half of your answer was much more interesting than the slogans at twenty paces we exchanged in the early part of the discussion.

Silhouette 11y ago

I'd say I'm a practitioner, but one who has been around the block a few times and perhaps done more research than most along the way. Once upon a time I did spend several years doing fairly serious investigations into ways to improve software development processes and what evidence was out there. The majority of that work wasn't primary research, but it was fascinating and sometimes enlightening to separate advocacy from evidence, and I suppose I've maintained the habit ever since. I find some of the ideas popularised by the Agile movement particularly interesting. Often there is decent evidence of effectiveness to some degree or in some context, the kernel of a good idea, if you like. Unfortunately, there is also the whole dogmatic advocacy thing, where evangelists extrapolate beyond the evidence and the benefits get overstated. Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that you've been doing this in our discussions here. I'm happy that TDD seems to work for your organisation, I've no reason to doubt that you find it effective, and if you have any write-ups of what you've found does or doesn't work well then I'd be happy to read about it. However, I've mentored more than one junior developer who really has told me point blank that we were doing software development wrong just because we weren't following the gospel according to Bob Martin, Joel Spolsky, or whoever it is this week. That gets old, so I tend to comment when discussions get into evidence-based debate, in the hope that it will point others towards information that took me a long time to find and reconcile.

jacques_chester 11y ago
I hear you. I often feel the same way. Most of what coalesced into agile in the late 90s was already "in the air", just taken further and tied together. For example, it's normal now to have CI/CD. In 1996, McConnell listed "daily build and smoke" as a best practice, describing it as the "heartbeat" of a project. Without it, you're dead. It didn't have a sexy name it was slow and fragile, but the concept was there. Or, variously, sprints or iterations. Various spiral models existed before Scrum and XP became the talk of the town; just nobody tried it. This was a good discussion. I continue to disagree with you about the parallels you drew and what I see as a line of argument that adoption of a practice is commensurate solely with its value and effectiveness. However I now appreciate why you were forceful. I fit a pattern you recognise.