8 ms·

> You’re shooting yourself in the foot by ignoring companies that take pride in offering an agile development environment. Fine by me. Everything I've seen an

> You’re shooting yourself in the foot by ignoring companies that take pride in offering an agile development environment. Fine by me. Everything I've seen and heard of Agile (both in the last company I worked at and from others) is that's it's a dumpster fire. It wasn't created by developers to improve development, it was created by consultants to sell consulting. DevOps is dumb, too. > Consider the alternative: a company whose ad says “we don’t follow any agile practices” - what would you interpret that to mean? That they haven't fallen for the hype and do what works for them.

dboreham 5y ago
You're hired!
water8 5y ago
It could also mean that they fall under the other extreme of perpetually outdated over-documentation. IMO the only thing worse than no docs are wrong docs.
- jameshart 5y ago
  Would you say that, perhaps, you value working software over comprehensive documentation?
  - water8 5y ago
    I get a lot less grief from the people who pay the bills this way.
  - junon 5y ago
    I can always read source code. Any programmer worth a damn can. Docs are out of sync with the code the second the code changes in any non-trivial way. However, code always documents how it works (sometimes poorly, of course).
    - jameshart 5y ago
      I'll take that as a yes. So I wonder how you feel about: Individuals and interactions VS processes and tools Customer collaboration VS contract negotiation Responding to change VS following a plan
      - junon 5y ago
        They're all important. I don't really see the point in chosing one or the other.
        water8 5y ago
        You have to pick one or the other when choosing your development strategy. If you focus on customer collaboration, you could end up giving away too many freebee features that should have been feature requests and billed. If you have a design iteration plan, how do you respond to a showstopper that makes the plan infeasible if you are on a strictly waterfall design plan? Each has it's trade offs so you can't always pick one or the other willy-nilly or else you don't have a design strategy at all
    - rhodozelia 5y ago
      The code I write is going to be used for 20-30 years, and then when the platform is replaced I assume someone will read the code to see what they have to do to get the system working on the new platform. I have documentation for end-users and documentation for maintenance / troubleshooters and zoomed out documentation that explains the problems and approaches taken, and sometimes justifying any tradeoffs. If code is temporary then it might not be worth the effort to document, but my documentation is what everybody except one person 20 years from now sees along with the user interface, so for my application the code doesn’t matter and the documentation matters quite a bit!
      - junon 5y ago
        I was more referring to how the code works and development practices/codebase layout/etc, not end-user documentation.
sirsinsalot 5y ago
As a counter-point, i've seen engineer-led Scrum and other agile varients work very well. Low stress, high productivity, high predictability. YMMV, and sadly the norm tends to be bad practice, but it isn't all like that. Companies with good engineering culture do engineering well. Companies with a poor culture do most things poorly.
- g051051 5y ago
  > Companies with good engineering culture do engineering well. Companies with a poor culture do most things poorly. Very true, but the "good" companies will be good regardless of what methodology they use. And it's rarely a one-size-fits-all approach. They recognize what works and what doesn't, without slavishly adhering to a single doctrine in the face of all evidence.
  - jameshart 5y ago
    So... when you're looking at a job ad, what words are you looking for that tell you a place has good engineering culture? I'm getting that 'agile' is not one of those words, but what words are?
    - g051051 5y ago
      An ad is pretty much useless for that, other than "negative" words (to me) like "scrum", "agile", etc. I'd be looking at the tech stack for things I'm proficient in, or things I'd be interested in learning. Also, WFH is now a critical for me, so it has to be 100% full-time remote work.
    - sirsinsalot 5y ago
      I'm indifferent to seeing "agile" in a job ad. Getting a job or client is like dating ... you find out what they mean by their bio over a few dates. If I ever accept a client or job, there's always a grace period.
jameshart 5y ago
I'm so confused by this thread. It's like I've wandered into a conversation where people are saying, "You know, my boss tried to give me cake the other day." "Cake? Everywhere seems to be doing it nowadays. What I would give to find a place to work where the boss doesn't make you eat cake all day." "Yeah, cake cake cake, all the time." And I'm like, "Er... cake? The yummy thing that's really nice? Your boss gave you cake? And you didn't like it?" And everybody replies: "No, you idiot, cake! Smelly, hard, poisonous cake, with glass shards in it as usual." I'm standing here, with my slice of yummy cake, thinking... are you the crazy ones, or am I? "You know, cake's meant to be like this: soft, sweet, really tasty?" "Yeah, that's what consultants want you to think, but cake is actually made of burnt tires and crushed up bottles." "Your boss gives you burnt tires and crushed bottles and tells you that's cake?" "Yes, that's what cake IS." And I can point to all the recipe books for cakes, and show you the cake I'm eating right now, and you'll all still tell me: "Well every cake I've ever been given smelled of burning rubber and made my mouth bleed, so I don't want to work anywhere that advertises that they give employees cake any more." "You sound just like the last guy who gave me cake." I mean, I get why that kind of experience might make you cynical, but I don't understand this desire to wallow in the belief that anyone who tells you it doesn't have to be like that must be lying or selling something. "And chocolate's awful too." Really? The same asshole who has gaslit you about what cake is has lied to you about chocolate too? I'm so sorry for you. Please. Let someone help. Have some cake.
- g051051 5y ago
  > I don't understand this desire to wallow in the belief that anyone who tells you it doesn't have to be like that must be lying or selling something. Because literally every time we've encountered cake it's a painful and disgusting experience. It's more like you've been given something that's been called cake, but is actually not cake. Whoever baked it realized that the recipe for cake could never work, so they changed it into something that would, and told you that was "real" cake.
  - jameshart 5y ago
    Yes, I believe you have been subjected to that abuse. But... the point of my metaphor is: cake does exist. It's real. You can make your own! The recipes are available! They do work! The fact that people have convinced you that cake doesn't exist is a reflection on them, not on me. You are trying to convince me - a person who is eating a cake right now - that cake is a lie. And for some reason you seem really angry with me about it.

dboreham 5y ago

You're hired!

water8 5y ago

It could also mean that they fall under the other extreme of perpetually outdated over-documentation. IMO the only thing worse than no docs are wrong docs.

jameshart 5y ago
Would you say that, perhaps, you value working software over comprehensive documentation?
- water8 5y ago
  I get a lot less grief from the people who pay the bills this way.
- junon 5y ago
  I can always read source code. Any programmer worth a damn can. Docs are out of sync with the code the second the code changes in any non-trivial way. However, code always documents how it works (sometimes poorly, of course).
  - jameshart 5y ago
    I'll take that as a yes. So I wonder how you feel about: Individuals and interactions VS processes and tools Customer collaboration VS contract negotiation Responding to change VS following a plan
    - junon 5y ago
      They're all important. I don't really see the point in chosing one or the other.
      - water8 5y ago
        You have to pick one or the other when choosing your development strategy. If you focus on customer collaboration, you could end up giving away too many freebee features that should have been feature requests and billed. If you have a design iteration plan, how do you respond to a showstopper that makes the plan infeasible if you are on a strictly waterfall design plan? Each has it's trade offs so you can't always pick one or the other willy-nilly or else you don't have a design strategy at all
  - rhodozelia 5y ago
    The code I write is going to be used for 20-30 years, and then when the platform is replaced I assume someone will read the code to see what they have to do to get the system working on the new platform. I have documentation for end-users and documentation for maintenance / troubleshooters and zoomed out documentation that explains the problems and approaches taken, and sometimes justifying any tradeoffs. If code is temporary then it might not be worth the effort to document, but my documentation is what everybody except one person 20 years from now sees along with the user interface, so for my application the code doesn’t matter and the documentation matters quite a bit!
    - junon 5y ago
      I was more referring to how the code works and development practices/codebase layout/etc, not end-user documentation.

sirsinsalot 5y ago

As a counter-point, i've seen engineer-led Scrum and other agile varients work very well. Low stress, high productivity, high predictability. YMMV, and sadly the norm tends to be bad practice, but it isn't all like that. Companies with good engineering culture do engineering well. Companies with a poor culture do most things poorly.

g051051 5y ago
> Companies with good engineering culture do engineering well. Companies with a poor culture do most things poorly. Very true, but the "good" companies will be good regardless of what methodology they use. And it's rarely a one-size-fits-all approach. They recognize what works and what doesn't, without slavishly adhering to a single doctrine in the face of all evidence.
- jameshart 5y ago
  So... when you're looking at a job ad, what words are you looking for that tell you a place has good engineering culture? I'm getting that 'agile' is not one of those words, but what words are?
  - g051051 5y ago
    An ad is pretty much useless for that, other than "negative" words (to me) like "scrum", "agile", etc. I'd be looking at the tech stack for things I'm proficient in, or things I'd be interested in learning. Also, WFH is now a critical for me, so it has to be 100% full-time remote work.
  - sirsinsalot 5y ago
    I'm indifferent to seeing "agile" in a job ad. Getting a job or client is like dating ... you find out what they mean by their bio over a few dates. If I ever accept a client or job, there's always a grace period.

jameshart 5y ago

I'm so confused by this thread. It's like I've wandered into a conversation where people are saying, "You know, my boss tried to give me cake the other day." "Cake? Everywhere seems to be doing it nowadays. What I would give to find a place to work where the boss doesn't make you eat cake all day." "Yeah, cake cake cake, all the time." And I'm like, "Er... cake? The yummy thing that's really nice? Your boss gave you cake? And you didn't like it?" And everybody replies: "No, you idiot, cake! Smelly, hard, poisonous cake, with glass shards in it as usual." I'm standing here, with my slice of yummy cake, thinking... are you the crazy ones, or am I? "You know, cake's meant to be like this: soft, sweet, really tasty?" "Yeah, that's what consultants want you to think, but cake is actually made of burnt tires and crushed up bottles." "Your boss gives you burnt tires and crushed bottles and tells you that's cake?" "Yes, that's what cake IS." And I can point to all the recipe books for cakes, and show you the cake I'm eating right now, and you'll all still tell me: "Well every cake I've ever been given smelled of burning rubber and made my mouth bleed, so I don't want to work anywhere that advertises that they give employees cake any more." "You sound just like the last guy who gave me cake." I mean, I get why that kind of experience might make you cynical, but I don't understand this desire to wallow in the belief that anyone who tells you it doesn't have to be like that must be lying or selling something. "And chocolate's awful too." Really? The same asshole who has gaslit you about what cake is has lied to you about chocolate too? I'm so sorry for you. Please. Let someone help. Have some cake.

g051051 5y ago
> I don't understand this desire to wallow in the belief that anyone who tells you it doesn't have to be like that must be lying or selling something. Because literally every time we've encountered cake it's a painful and disgusting experience. It's more like you've been given something that's been called cake, but is actually not cake. Whoever baked it realized that the recipe for cake could never work, so they changed it into something that would, and told you that was "real" cake.
- jameshart 5y ago
  Yes, I believe you have been subjected to that abuse. But... the point of my metaphor is: cake does exist. It's real. You can make your own! The recipes are available! They do work! The fact that people have convinced you that cake doesn't exist is a reflection on them, not on me. You are trying to convince me - a person who is eating a cake right now - that cake is a lie. And for some reason you seem really angry with me about it.