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Too bad people didn't bother reading the Unified Process book, which clearly specifies the use of iterative and incremental development and the creation of just

Too bad people didn't bother reading the Unified Process book, which clearly specifies the use of iterative and incremental development and the creation of just enough UML diagrams to communicate and document a system design. It even argues that working software should be used to describe an architecture in the Elaboration phase rather than a 10000 words document. It can actually be considered as one of the first agile methodologies. RUP and other flavors of UP just added tools and guides aimed to facilitate the implementation of UP, but it was misunderstood that every template and section must be filled out instead of actually thinking what to use depending on the project. Unfortunately the whole thing was ultimately bastardized by the non-technical template zombies that thought software development is like building a skyscraper.

specialist 8y ago
The CASE motivated tooling got in the way. My go to joke: RationalRose is like an 800lb angry gorilla sitting between you and your work. Alistair Cockburn did a great post mortem about that era. Characterizing people as non-linear, first-order components in software development [1999] http://alistair.cockburn.us/Characterizing+people+as+non-linear%2c+first-order+components+in+software+development http://alistair.cockburn.us/Characterizing+people+as+non-lin... During that time, I strongly preferred lo-fi paper prototyping for UI. And I'd scratch out UML diagrams. Worked fine for intra-team. But it just didn't fly with management. We had to make everything more formal and pretty. Oh well.
- mmusson 8y ago
  It’s funny looking back at what we used to call software development methodologies. Booch and Rumbaugh were primarily focused on modeling. Any talk of process meant a dynamic description of the program. Jacobson was a little more method focused. You can see how his introduction of use cases started the idea of talking to your customer about what they need. I remember seeing Rose and thinking this will make a huge improvement only to be repeatedly confused and frustrated that it seemed to make everything take longer.
  - specialist 8y ago
    Finally! I get share my Booch story: At OOPLSA 98, Booch convened the first society of software architects (or some such). Having read all his writing (ditto Yourdon, Brooks, Rumblaugh, etc), I was super excited. During the Q&A I finally got to ask “What is software architecture?” Booch replied “Software architecture is what software architects do.” Bubble popped. I gave up seeking the council of the priesthood and blazed my own path.
    - wpietri 8y ago
      Wow. In some ways, that's the worst possible answer. In my view, software architecture is what every developer contributes to, which means we have to be thoughtful about how we collaborate on it. Every time I see a shop with designated Software Architects who hog the architecture work, it's a fucking mess. Because then Software Architects don't get rewarded in their careers for making software. They get rewarded for writing white papers and coming up with "brilliant" architectures and impressing executives who know less than them about technology. Which is mostly inversely correlated with actually making it easier for developers to get real work done.
wpietri 8y ago
I totally agree that it was taken over by zombies, and also agree it had some good ideas. But I don't think it was quite as incremental and iterative as all that. One, it was more a "process framework" than an actual process, so iteration length could be whatever the grand poobahs wanted. They were entirely fine with multi-month iterations. Two, as the "RUP hump" chart shows, it was always pretty waterfall-ish. And three, whatever the words in the book, the RUP adopters were generally large-company shops, and he who pays the piper calls the tune. I definitely remember the RUP people coming to the early Agile conferences and being very suspicious of our wild ways. So I'm not sure even its originators would have called it an Agile process.

specialist 8y ago

The CASE motivated tooling got in the way. My go to joke: RationalRose is like an 800lb angry gorilla sitting between you and your work. Alistair Cockburn did a great post mortem about that era. Characterizing people as non-linear, first-order components in software development [1999] http://alistair.cockburn.us/Characterizing+people+as+non-linear%2c+first-order+components+in+software+development http://alistair.cockburn.us/Characterizing+people+as+non-lin... During that time, I strongly preferred lo-fi paper prototyping for UI. And I'd scratch out UML diagrams. Worked fine for intra-team. But it just didn't fly with management. We had to make everything more formal and pretty. Oh well.

mmusson 8y ago
It’s funny looking back at what we used to call software development methodologies. Booch and Rumbaugh were primarily focused on modeling. Any talk of process meant a dynamic description of the program. Jacobson was a little more method focused. You can see how his introduction of use cases started the idea of talking to your customer about what they need. I remember seeing Rose and thinking this will make a huge improvement only to be repeatedly confused and frustrated that it seemed to make everything take longer.
- specialist 8y ago
  Finally! I get share my Booch story: At OOPLSA 98, Booch convened the first society of software architects (or some such). Having read all his writing (ditto Yourdon, Brooks, Rumblaugh, etc), I was super excited. During the Q&A I finally got to ask “What is software architecture?” Booch replied “Software architecture is what software architects do.” Bubble popped. I gave up seeking the council of the priesthood and blazed my own path.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    Wow. In some ways, that's the worst possible answer. In my view, software architecture is what every developer contributes to, which means we have to be thoughtful about how we collaborate on it. Every time I see a shop with designated Software Architects who hog the architecture work, it's a fucking mess. Because then Software Architects don't get rewarded in their careers for making software. They get rewarded for writing white papers and coming up with "brilliant" architectures and impressing executives who know less than them about technology. Which is mostly inversely correlated with actually making it easier for developers to get real work done.

wpietri 8y ago

I totally agree that it was taken over by zombies, and also agree it had some good ideas. But I don't think it was quite as incremental and iterative as all that. One, it was more a "process framework" than an actual process, so iteration length could be whatever the grand poobahs wanted. They were entirely fine with multi-month iterations. Two, as the "RUP hump" chart shows, it was always pretty waterfall-ish. And three, whatever the words in the book, the RUP adopters were generally large-company shops, and he who pays the piper calls the tune. I definitely remember the RUP people coming to the early Agile conferences and being very suspicious of our wild ways. So I'm not sure even its originators would have called it an Agile process.