7 ms·

After doing software for almost 30 years now, I honestly believe Agile has been the most destructive thing to happen to the industry. Software has become buggy

by snarfy 8y ago

After doing software for almost 30 years now, I honestly believe Agile has been the most destructive thing to happen to the industry. Software has become buggy shit that's shoveled out the door as fast as possible. It's not just your development team, it's all development teams. Windows 10 update deleting your files? Is it the lack of testing, poor code quality, too many features or not enough engineers? Ultimately it's going to boil down to some cargo cult scrum process of reviews, retros, and bs that we are all familiar with, and Windows 10 is buggy. Android is buggy. iOS is buggy. Nobody cares about the software. They blindly follow the process.

Bombthecat 8y ago
Windows 10 failed because they fired all there testers...
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Which is exactly what happens in many "agile" projects, test team gets replaced by devops and unit tests. Except those unit tests get a lower priority than writing documentation. And we all know which priority writing documentation gets.
  - ggregoire 8y ago
    Not sure what “agile” projects you are talking about, but SCRUM doesn’t advocate writing documentation. Also SCRUM has a concept of Definition of Done, which can include writing the unit/functional/integration tests related to your task. Also SCRUM recommends to have a human tests that your task is not bugged before shipping (that’s the job of the PO or the tech lead).
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      That is the theory, then there is the actual practice on software development battlefield.
      - himynameisdom 8y ago
        Since when is this an excuse for not exhibiting courage to adhere to the framework? Scrum was built on experience, not theory anyways.
        pjmlp 8y ago
        What courage are you talking about? I just stated a fact about how many companies state they do agile, SCRUM or otherwise, while reality shows otherwise. For those companies, the definiton of done is management slideware. Which is exactly the main theme of Foley's talk.
  - Bombthecat 8y ago
    Well, testers are the first to go to cut cost... Usually.. This was true ten years ago and is under agile still true..
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Doesn't help of course, but high quality cannot be tested into a product. I'd place more blame on inexperienced developers that don't know you should never delete user files unless completely sure they aren't needed. Even then they should be put in a backlog to be deleted later.
asaph 8y ago
> Windows 10 is buggy. Android is buggy. iOS is buggy. Let's not pretend bugs didn't exist in the pre-agile/scrum era. Bugs have been around as long as software has been around.
- protonimitate 8y ago
  I think it's safe to say that bugs are way more predominant in software that used to be reliable. It's not that the software was completely bug free, it's the quantity and quality of the bugs now being presented.
  - kasey_junk 8y ago
    I don’t think that’s safe to say at all. I’d love to see research that backed that up. If anything I’d say we might be exposed to more bugs because the quantity of software has gone up, not that quality has gone down.
  - asaph 8y ago
    I don't think windows used to be more reliable. It used to crash all the time. Do you remember the blue screen of death[0]? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death
    - quantummkv 8y ago
      But I don't remember any BSOD wiping all my documents just like that.
      - yoden 8y ago
        I mean windows 95/98 didn't even use a journaled filesystem... a BSOD could wipe your documents...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - 8y ago
blub 8y ago
Happy to see people questioning agile. There are two books which the skeptics might find interesting: * Agile, the good bad and ugly by Bertrand Meyer * Balancing agility and discipline by Boehm
fouc 8y ago
But testing is part of scrum! /s
gilbetron 8y ago
I doubt you've been doing software for 30 years if you think software these days is buggy compared to software 20+ years ago. The amount of software these days is incredibly vast compared to back then, and the size of the software has increased, and the complexity has increased. Given all that, software these days is far less buggy.
- DonHopkins 8y ago
  I don't know how you're measuring it, but certainly not if you count the number of bugs. How are you measuring it? Where do you get your numbers? What are your numbers, for that matter?
ryanmarsh 8y ago
Agile Coach here, there’s more truth to this than you may know. I’ve commented here about this before. With agile many companies (often helped by consultants) threw out what little design and engineering common sense we scraped together over the preceding decades and, in practice, made small teams of developers directly accountable to their customers. Whilst customers saw immediate benefit the loss of air cover from engineering leadership hath wrought a mess of technical debt the scale of which is hard to fathom. I’m thoroughly fed up with my field. Agile coaches are, for the most part, fucking muppets with no significant engineering or leadership background. Fire them all.
siruncledrew 8y ago
> Software has become buggy shit that's shoveled out the door as fast as possible. This comes up a lot in dealing with PMs and those funneling requirements to developers: What is "good enough"? "Good enough" for a software project means different things to different people, and is influenced by factors like time, cost, and attention. Oftentimes, there's conflicting desires/statements from stakeholders in the Agile process. For example: - Executives approve an iterative "MVP" software plan proposed by the PMs. - PMs deliver plan to developers, and give them a schedule. - Developers deliver the software "as-is" based on what was scoped in the MVP plan. - Executives (or some other party) are demoed the software, and undoubtedly come up with list of things that could be done differently or questions like "Why don't we have this feature in..." - PMs funnel down the executive feedback to the developers; developers say "This wasn't in scope for MVP..." Where iteration and speed falls apart is when those judging the work want things to move out the door on schedule and as cheaply as possible, while still have the software fit their liking and follow an unrealistically ideal development path.

by snarfy 8y ago

Bombthecat 8y ago

Windows 10 failed because they fired all there testers...

pjmlp 8y ago
Which is exactly what happens in many "agile" projects, test team gets replaced by devops and unit tests. Except those unit tests get a lower priority than writing documentation. And we all know which priority writing documentation gets.
- ggregoire 8y ago
  Not sure what “agile” projects you are talking about, but SCRUM doesn’t advocate writing documentation. Also SCRUM has a concept of Definition of Done, which can include writing the unit/functional/integration tests related to your task. Also SCRUM recommends to have a human tests that your task is not bugged before shipping (that’s the job of the PO or the tech lead).
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    That is the theory, then there is the actual practice on software development battlefield.
    - himynameisdom 8y ago
      Since when is this an excuse for not exhibiting courage to adhere to the framework? Scrum was built on experience, not theory anyways.
      - pjmlp 8y ago
        What courage are you talking about? I just stated a fact about how many companies state they do agile, SCRUM or otherwise, while reality shows otherwise. For those companies, the definiton of done is management slideware. Which is exactly the main theme of Foley's talk.
- Bombthecat 8y ago
  Well, testers are the first to go to cut cost... Usually.. This was true ten years ago and is under agile still true..
mixmastamyk 8y ago
Doesn't help of course, but high quality cannot be tested into a product. I'd place more blame on inexperienced developers that don't know you should never delete user files unless completely sure they aren't needed. Even then they should be put in a backlog to be deleted later.

asaph 8y ago

> Windows 10 is buggy. Android is buggy. iOS is buggy. Let's not pretend bugs didn't exist in the pre-agile/scrum era. Bugs have been around as long as software has been around.

protonimitate 8y ago
I think it's safe to say that bugs are way more predominant in software that used to be reliable. It's not that the software was completely bug free, it's the quantity and quality of the bugs now being presented.
- kasey_junk 8y ago
  I don’t think that’s safe to say at all. I’d love to see research that backed that up. If anything I’d say we might be exposed to more bugs because the quantity of software has gone up, not that quality has gone down.
- asaph 8y ago
  I don't think windows used to be more reliable. It used to crash all the time. Do you remember the blue screen of death[0]? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death
  - quantummkv 8y ago
    But I don't remember any BSOD wiping all my documents just like that.
    - yoden 8y ago
      I mean windows 95/98 didn't even use a journaled filesystem... a BSOD could wipe your documents...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- 8y ago

blub 8y ago

Happy to see people questioning agile. There are two books which the skeptics might find interesting: * Agile, the good bad and ugly by Bertrand Meyer * Balancing agility and discipline by Boehm

fouc 8y ago

But testing is part of scrum! /s

gilbetron 8y ago

I doubt you've been doing software for 30 years if you think software these days is buggy compared to software 20+ years ago. The amount of software these days is incredibly vast compared to back then, and the size of the software has increased, and the complexity has increased. Given all that, software these days is far less buggy.

DonHopkins 8y ago
I don't know how you're measuring it, but certainly not if you count the number of bugs. How are you measuring it? Where do you get your numbers? What are your numbers, for that matter?

ryanmarsh 8y ago

Agile Coach here, there’s more truth to this than you may know. I’ve commented here about this before. With agile many companies (often helped by consultants) threw out what little design and engineering common sense we scraped together over the preceding decades and, in practice, made small teams of developers directly accountable to their customers. Whilst customers saw immediate benefit the loss of air cover from engineering leadership hath wrought a mess of technical debt the scale of which is hard to fathom. I’m thoroughly fed up with my field. Agile coaches are, for the most part, fucking muppets with no significant engineering or leadership background. Fire them all.

siruncledrew 8y ago

> Software has become buggy shit that's shoveled out the door as fast as possible. This comes up a lot in dealing with PMs and those funneling requirements to developers: What is "good enough"? "Good enough" for a software project means different things to different people, and is influenced by factors like time, cost, and attention. Oftentimes, there's conflicting desires/statements from stakeholders in the Agile process. For example: - Executives approve an iterative "MVP" software plan proposed by the PMs. - PMs deliver plan to developers, and give them a schedule. - Developers deliver the software "as-is" based on what was scoped in the MVP plan. - Executives (or some other party) are demoed the software, and undoubtedly come up with list of things that could be done differently or questions like "Why don't we have this feature in..." - PMs funnel down the executive feedback to the developers; developers say "This wasn't in scope for MVP..." Where iteration and speed falls apart is when those judging the work want things to move out the door on schedule and as cheaply as possible, while still have the software fit their liking and follow an unrealistically ideal development path.