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> This makes sense to me: https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html > Everything else in the "agile" cult is bullsh

by lapcat 3y ago

> This makes sense to me: https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html > Everything else in the "agile" cult is bullshit. IMO the fundamental problem with the manifesto is the question, who is the customer? "Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software." My customers don't want "early and continuous delivery". I hate App Store apps that release new versions every week with cutesy uninformative release notes like "We've improved the software for you". That's bullshit. And users don't want "early" half-baked buggy crapware; they want their software to Just Work™. The Agile Manifesto seems designed for contractors or for wage-slaves to middle-managers. Replace "the customer" with "the end user" and it doesn't sound so great anymore. But nobody seems to care about the users of the software.

dylan604 3y ago
>"We've improved the software for you" let me translate that, "we rushed our previous release to meet some arbitrary deadline to make some manager look good, but here's a release to finish some of the issues we knew were left incomplete while we all collectively held our breath that not enough people would run into the known issues" at least, that's how i interpret it
- palata 3y ago
  So much this! How many times do we have to work evenings and weekends for a bullshit deadline, and then see that the user doesn't start using the feature for another 4 months, if they ever actually use it?
palata 3y ago
> But nobody seems to care about the users of the software. Nope, we care about money :-). My feeling is that software has been becoming worse every year since I started writing code (that's 20 years).
com2kid 3y ago
> My customers don't want "early and continuous delivery". I hate App Store apps that release new versions every week with cutesy uninformative release notes like "We've improved the software for you". That's bullshit. And users don't want "early" half-baked buggy crapware; they want their software to Just Work™. Prior to Agile delivery, updates came once every 3 or 4 years and software languished in-between releases. If software shipped with a bug, that bug stayed around for a long time, unless it was lucky enough to get fixed in a service pack. For large dev houses those service packs were complicated and hard to ship, because their entire organizational structure was based around big bang releases. Competitor comes out with a killer feature? Well users of your software weren't going to get it for literally years, during which time a fair number of them might very well defect to the competitor's software. And a lot of software you use gets updated all the time, you just don't notice. Performance bugs get fixed, memory leaks patched, and UI quirks, that you may not have run into, are removed.
- palata 3y ago
  > Prior to Agile delivery, updates came once every 3 or 4 years and software languished in-between releases. Did you experience that, or did you read it in one of your Agile bibles? Genuinely interested.
  - com2kid 3y ago
    I worked at Microsoft. Windows releases, Office releases, Visual Studio releases. I started my career in the mobile (originally Windows CE) compiler team. Releases were a big deal, support contracted lasted seemingly forever. (Ironically, internally the mobile compiler team was actually very agile, with weekly full test passes happening, the compiler always being in a shippable state, and development occurring in what would now be considered modern practices.) Microsoft was getting destroyed because they were very non-agile. As soon as the iPhone came out, Apple started releasing a new OS every year, and back then OS updates had significant developer API improvements. Windows Phone couldn't complete with that. I remember how lacking the camera API was soon as instagram types apps with filters came along, Windows Phone went from amazing to instantly behind the curve. Look at what happened to Hotmail when GMail came out, it took Microsoft years to catch up just with the storage space increases, UI improvements took even longer. Microsoft ended up losing their top spot in the webmail game. Internet Explorer (eventually Edge) was tied to OS releases. Even when MS started to invest in their browser again, being tied to OS releases meant it could never complete with Chrome releases happening every few months. Edge would have a big release, pull ahead on benchmarks, then 6 months later be out of date and behind the curve again. Agile forces code to always be in a shippable state, which is a good thing. It doesn't let code become bug ridden and then say "we'll fix it sometime later". That forcing function alone is a huge improvement.
RayFrankenstein 3y ago
Agile’s term “customer” is actually very ambiguous about whether it’s trying to define the relationships between developers and employers or developers and users who buy the software.
SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
The Agile Manifesto was written by contractors, about their experience contracting.

by lapcat 3y ago

dylan604 3y ago

>"We've improved the software for you" let me translate that, "we rushed our previous release to meet some arbitrary deadline to make some manager look good, but here's a release to finish some of the issues we knew were left incomplete while we all collectively held our breath that not enough people would run into the known issues" at least, that's how i interpret it

palata 3y ago
So much this! How many times do we have to work evenings and weekends for a bullshit deadline, and then see that the user doesn't start using the feature for another 4 months, if they ever actually use it?

palata 3y ago

> But nobody seems to care about the users of the software. Nope, we care about money :-). My feeling is that software has been becoming worse every year since I started writing code (that's 20 years).

com2kid 3y ago

> My customers don't want "early and continuous delivery". I hate App Store apps that release new versions every week with cutesy uninformative release notes like "We've improved the software for you". That's bullshit. And users don't want "early" half-baked buggy crapware; they want their software to Just Work™. Prior to Agile delivery, updates came once every 3 or 4 years and software languished in-between releases. If software shipped with a bug, that bug stayed around for a long time, unless it was lucky enough to get fixed in a service pack. For large dev houses those service packs were complicated and hard to ship, because their entire organizational structure was based around big bang releases. Competitor comes out with a killer feature? Well users of your software weren't going to get it for literally years, during which time a fair number of them might very well defect to the competitor's software. And a lot of software you use gets updated all the time, you just don't notice. Performance bugs get fixed, memory leaks patched, and UI quirks, that you may not have run into, are removed.

palata 3y ago
> Prior to Agile delivery, updates came once every 3 or 4 years and software languished in-between releases. Did you experience that, or did you read it in one of your Agile bibles? Genuinely interested.
- com2kid 3y ago
  I worked at Microsoft. Windows releases, Office releases, Visual Studio releases. I started my career in the mobile (originally Windows CE) compiler team. Releases were a big deal, support contracted lasted seemingly forever. (Ironically, internally the mobile compiler team was actually very agile, with weekly full test passes happening, the compiler always being in a shippable state, and development occurring in what would now be considered modern practices.) Microsoft was getting destroyed because they were very non-agile. As soon as the iPhone came out, Apple started releasing a new OS every year, and back then OS updates had significant developer API improvements. Windows Phone couldn't complete with that. I remember how lacking the camera API was soon as instagram types apps with filters came along, Windows Phone went from amazing to instantly behind the curve. Look at what happened to Hotmail when GMail came out, it took Microsoft years to catch up just with the storage space increases, UI improvements took even longer. Microsoft ended up losing their top spot in the webmail game. Internet Explorer (eventually Edge) was tied to OS releases. Even when MS started to invest in their browser again, being tied to OS releases meant it could never complete with Chrome releases happening every few months. Edge would have a big release, pull ahead on benchmarks, then 6 months later be out of date and behind the curve again. Agile forces code to always be in a shippable state, which is a good thing. It doesn't let code become bug ridden and then say "we'll fix it sometime later". That forcing function alone is a huge improvement.

RayFrankenstein 3y ago

Agile’s term “customer” is actually very ambiguous about whether it’s trying to define the relationships between developers and employers or developers and users who buy the software.

SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago

The Agile Manifesto was written by contractors, about their experience contracting.