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> Bob Martin put it best: "Software projects are marathons, and in a marathon you don't want to sprint." As a both a runner and a developer, I find this quite
by mns 6y ago
> Bob Martin put it best: "Software projects are marathons, and in a marathon you don't want to sprint."
As a both a runner and a developer, I find this quite funny and a bit wrong. The fact that we call them sprints can be a bit wrong or confusing if you put them in a different context, but what I can say is that almost every serious runner will constantly check their laps, be it miles, be it km, you will always look at your watch to see how you performed in your last km and if you are on track.
That's what I see useful in sprints, the fact that you stop for a bit and see where you are, you have the time to discuss things that might have gone wrong and try to fix them before it gets out of hand. But in the end I can understand people who dislike the system, because I've worked with a lot of managers with no technical knowledge trying to manage technical projects.
- addicted 6y agoAnd that’s why metaphors suck. Unlike in a run, where I know the exact moment and location I have reached my halfway point, in a real software project I don’t even know what the actual distance to be covered will be. What sprints force you to do is basically make sure you’re running full tilt for every 400m distance, which is fine if the eventual distance ends up being 800m for example, but if it ends up being 26 miles instead, you’re just gonna burn out well before.