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I was at OOPLSA 1998 where it was going viral. Participated in the early C2 wiki. Participated in some of the early "workshops" on this upstart rebel movement.

I was at OOPLSA 1998 where it was going viral. Participated in the early C2 wiki. Participated in some of the early "workshops" on this upstart rebel movement. Raised in a christian tradition, and somewhat a student of history of christianity, I was fascinated by parallels that unfolded in months` time what took place over centuries in christianity. 5 years after the movement began, I found that it felt as watered down, abstracted, and diverse as christianity spent 2000 years becoming. I could bond with a fellow programmer as an "agilist" and at a very vague level, there was some abstract similarity (e.g as christianity might be to "be kind", agile might be to "be lightweight"). Everyone took the parts they wanted and formulated what fit for them. Which was/is both a good thing and a bad thing.

mjburgess 5y ago
We are unfortunately saddled with "religion" as the archetype of this behaviour. Perhaps we could call it, "social virtue mythology". What is a social virtue mythology? It answers the following questions: * Why is there evil in the world? (ie., why arent things perfect) * How do you overcome evil? (ie., become perfect) * Who is good? Who is evil? * In what or who should I place my trust? * etc. Today we can see many such competing virtue mythologies.... Why is there evil in the world? New Atheists: Religion; Feminism: Patriarchy; Socialists: Capitalism; Idenity-Woke: Essentialism. Personally I regard this as wholely "mythological" because the questions these social-virtue systems are designed to answer "take place" in a utopian/dystopian reality. Ie., many people eventually discover that there is no need of this type of mythology: reality is itself flawed. We aren't "owed" a utopia, and thus there is no question to answer. Here, in agile then we see these patterns even in this thread. Some commenters are still trying to answer the question, "why isnt software design/construction perfect?" as-if there can be a virtue/vice answer, ie., "because we have failed to...". Rather, no. These problems are irresolvable. The reality of software is intrinsically broken: there is no customer to give you the requirements, there is no habit which elicits them, there is no mechanism to build reliable software, and so on. Many are extremely loath to confront this reality, especially as adolescents; ie., that they are powerless to build their utopia. The really-existing world has irresolvable contradictions that admit no virtuous resolution.

mjburgess 5y ago

We are unfortunately saddled with "religion" as the archetype of this behaviour. Perhaps we could call it, "social virtue mythology". What is a social virtue mythology? It answers the following questions: * Why is there evil in the world? (ie., why arent things perfect) * How do you overcome evil? (ie., become perfect) * Who is good? Who is evil? * In what or who should I place my trust? * etc. Today we can see many such competing virtue mythologies.... Why is there evil in the world? New Atheists: Religion; Feminism: Patriarchy; Socialists: Capitalism; Idenity-Woke: Essentialism. Personally I regard this as wholely "mythological" because the questions these social-virtue systems are designed to answer "take place" in a utopian/dystopian reality. Ie., many people eventually discover that there is no need of this type of mythology: reality is itself flawed. We aren't "owed" a utopia, and thus there is no question to answer. Here, in agile then we see these patterns even in this thread. Some commenters are still trying to answer the question, "why isnt software design/construction perfect?" as-if there can be a virtue/vice answer, ie., "because we have failed to...". Rather, no. These problems are irresolvable. The reality of software is intrinsically broken: there is no customer to give you the requirements, there is no habit which elicits them, there is no mechanism to build reliable software, and so on. Many are extremely loath to confront this reality, especially as adolescents; ie., that they are powerless to build their utopia. The really-existing world has irresolvable contradictions that admit no virtuous resolution.