8 ms·

One thing not addressed here is: I can make better software. I can fix these problems. I can find them first, and then fix them. I _can't_ do that when I'm u

One thing not addressed here is: I can make better software. I can fix these problems. I can find them first, and then fix them. I _can't_ do that when I'm under ridiculous time pressure from an "agile coach" who barely knows what an Excel macro is but who, for some reason, is responsible for deciding what gets prioritized and who gets a bonus and who gets downsized. I can't identify and correct complex technical problems when I'm attending a one-hour daily "scrum" explaining that yes, I'm still working on "task" 5398129 and yes, it was a 4 "point" story (because that's the maximum we're allowed), but as it turns out, almost everything interesting and useful is also complex -- in direct opposition to the mindset that drives the oxymoronic atrocity that people now refer to as "agile".

sametmax 8y ago
That's because security doesn't bring money on the table for most products. People are ok with their private life being violated, they don't mind discreet censorship or mass monitoring. Since we make money with those users, and because the market moves fast, the only security most companies accept to afford is protection against script kiddies and bad PR. But there is a reason the average Joe doesn't care about all those things: it works for him, most of the time. The amount of persons really having their life seriously disturbed because of a security flaw is small. Even during the last decades of data leaks, the actual individuals suffering the consequences are a small number. So economically and socially, it's been a winning strategy up to now. Just like pollution, mass consumption, etc.
tarunkotia 8y ago
I wish you had used "task" 19143203 instead ;)
abritinthebay 8y ago
Nothing you described there is “agile” however. In fact they run counter to every fundamental thing agile stands for. Sounds like your company slammed an agile label on a broken process and thought it would fix it. Agile has nothing to do with those problems, if it wasn’t called that it would a crappy implementation of some other idea. The problem is you have a terrible engineering culture & leadership at your company.
Bartweiss 8y ago
Another way I've seen this put: we can already write software that's reliable the way bridges are reliable. The only problem is that people don't want to pay for it, wait for it, or accommodate it. Cleanroom development supposedly lead to production code with 1 bug per 10k lines back in the 80s, and NASA famously managed Shuttle code with 0 bugs in 500,000 checked lines. Other projects like Ariane 5 were not so lucky, but the general error rate is still incredibly low. To my knowledge, software in general has killed fewer spacecraft than other narrow issues like voltage inconsistencies or launch vibrations. And after the Therac-25 incident, medical device software has followed similar a development track. Even automotive software, subjected to far fewer restrictions and more varied environments, has a better critical-failure track record than well-understood components like brakes and tires. Producing software like that is orders of magnitude more expensive than producing 'normal' code. It takes far longer, in ways that more money can't neatly displace. It rarely talks to other systems, because doing so requires exhaustive testing at the interface (for every version), or testing both systems as one (with exponential testing requirements). And it's severely limited in range; freeform inputs and best-guess behavior when adjacent systems fail are out of the question. There are institutional changes that could bring us better software under existing constraints, definitely. But it's also true that the general approach to design is sort of hopeless; the sheer amount of software getting built is inconsistent with what rigorous design looks like in pretty much any field.
- jrochkind1 8y ago
  > Producing software like that is orders of magnitude more expensive than producing 'normal' code. Yes. Which I think points out that it's not exactly just a question of _will_ or _desire_, that we don't "want" to pay for it, wait for it, accomodate it. It would mean anyone producing software would need _an order of magnitude more money_ to do it. If we're talking about all software... it seems likely that our society literally could not afford it. I suppose we could produce an order of magnitude _less but good software_ instead. But we've built a society which is largely based on software, and been able to afford it as a society only because it's largely based on crappy software.
  - Bartweiss 8y ago
vkuruthers 8y ago
100% this. I also find it extremely annoying to have to give daily status updates on highly complex, time consuming problem. It shows a complete lack of understanding of the work being done. The sooner we move om from this Agile garbage the better.
- silveroriole 8y ago
  Agree. Over many years I realise I actually found waterfall great as a dev. There the worst that could happen was a clueless PM poking in every week and having to be given a vague estimate of how done we were with various tasks. Sure, it probably sucked for that PM, but I was having a good time. Now? Sometimes having to meaninglessly sum up where I am with a piddly ‘agile’ task MULTIPLE times a DAY. It takes more time to update jira/managers/coworkers than to just do the damn thing. Really winds me up.
  - vkuruthers 8y ago
    Yes, I strongly prefer waterfall. Back in the good old days we had a biz. quarter to deliver a set of features. This allowed time for a spec., thinking about how it would all work, doing a design doc, working with QA on how they'd effectively test the features etc. Weekly status updates were adequate and an appropriate "polling frequency". All of that is now thrown out the window in the mad hacking frenzy to make progress on the stupid "points" and try and show progress at the dreaded daily standup meeting (even though it's not supposed to be a progress meeting). Then to make it worse, various team's progress are compared by looking at "points completed" without any kind of normalization of difficulty or risk for the different teams. Then the final insult is the whole debacle is deemed a "success" because we've "switched to Agile", thereby checking off a box that some CTO with too much time on his hands read about in some MIT technology review. I would actively refuse any job offering "Agile development" unless they had a very practical & pragmatic way of implementing it. The only one getting any benefits from this crap are the Agile consultants and the PMs.

sametmax 8y ago

That's because security doesn't bring money on the table for most products. People are ok with their private life being violated, they don't mind discreet censorship or mass monitoring. Since we make money with those users, and because the market moves fast, the only security most companies accept to afford is protection against script kiddies and bad PR. But there is a reason the average Joe doesn't care about all those things: it works for him, most of the time. The amount of persons really having their life seriously disturbed because of a security flaw is small. Even during the last decades of data leaks, the actual individuals suffering the consequences are a small number. So economically and socially, it's been a winning strategy up to now. Just like pollution, mass consumption, etc.

tarunkotia 8y ago

I wish you had used "task" 19143203 instead ;)

abritinthebay 8y ago

Nothing you described there is “agile” however. In fact they run counter to every fundamental thing agile stands for. Sounds like your company slammed an agile label on a broken process and thought it would fix it. Agile has nothing to do with those problems, if it wasn’t called that it would a crappy implementation of some other idea. The problem is you have a terrible engineering culture & leadership at your company.

Bartweiss 8y ago

Another way I've seen this put: we can already write software that's reliable the way bridges are reliable. The only problem is that people don't want to pay for it, wait for it, or accommodate it. Cleanroom development supposedly lead to production code with 1 bug per 10k lines back in the 80s, and NASA famously managed Shuttle code with 0 bugs in 500,000 checked lines. Other projects like Ariane 5 were not so lucky, but the general error rate is still incredibly low. To my knowledge, software in general has killed fewer spacecraft than other narrow issues like voltage inconsistencies or launch vibrations. And after the Therac-25 incident, medical device software has followed similar a development track. Even automotive software, subjected to far fewer restrictions and more varied environments, has a better critical-failure track record than well-understood components like brakes and tires. Producing software like that is orders of magnitude more expensive than producing 'normal' code. It takes far longer, in ways that more money can't neatly displace. It rarely talks to other systems, because doing so requires exhaustive testing at the interface (for every version), or testing both systems as one (with exponential testing requirements). And it's severely limited in range; freeform inputs and best-guess behavior when adjacent systems fail are out of the question. There are institutional changes that could bring us better software under existing constraints, definitely. But it's also true that the general approach to design is sort of hopeless; the sheer amount of software getting built is inconsistent with what rigorous design looks like in pretty much any field.

jrochkind1 8y ago
> Producing software like that is orders of magnitude more expensive than producing 'normal' code. Yes. Which I think points out that it's not exactly just a question of _will_ or _desire_, that we don't "want" to pay for it, wait for it, accomodate it. It would mean anyone producing software would need _an order of magnitude more money_ to do it. If we're talking about all software... it seems likely that our society literally could not afford it. I suppose we could produce an order of magnitude _less but good software_ instead. But we've built a society which is largely based on software, and been able to afford it as a society only because it's largely based on crappy software.
- Bartweiss 8y ago

vkuruthers 8y ago

100% this. I also find it extremely annoying to have to give daily status updates on highly complex, time consuming problem. It shows a complete lack of understanding of the work being done. The sooner we move om from this Agile garbage the better.

silveroriole 8y ago
Agree. Over many years I realise I actually found waterfall great as a dev. There the worst that could happen was a clueless PM poking in every week and having to be given a vague estimate of how done we were with various tasks. Sure, it probably sucked for that PM, but I was having a good time. Now? Sometimes having to meaninglessly sum up where I am with a piddly ‘agile’ task MULTIPLE times a DAY. It takes more time to update jira/managers/coworkers than to just do the damn thing. Really winds me up.
- vkuruthers 8y ago
  Yes, I strongly prefer waterfall. Back in the good old days we had a biz. quarter to deliver a set of features. This allowed time for a spec., thinking about how it would all work, doing a design doc, working with QA on how they'd effectively test the features etc. Weekly status updates were adequate and an appropriate "polling frequency". All of that is now thrown out the window in the mad hacking frenzy to make progress on the stupid "points" and try and show progress at the dreaded daily standup meeting (even though it's not supposed to be a progress meeting). Then to make it worse, various team's progress are compared by looking at "points completed" without any kind of normalization of difficulty or risk for the different teams. Then the final insult is the whole debacle is deemed a "success" because we've "switched to Agile", thereby checking off a box that some CTO with too much time on his hands read about in some MIT technology review. I would actively refuse any job offering "Agile development" unless they had a very practical & pragmatic way of implementing it. The only one getting any benefits from this crap are the Agile consultants and the PMs.