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Its refreshing to see that he focuses on integration testing. Most programmers I know understand that in any kind of engineering every decision is a tradeoff. S

Its refreshing to see that he focuses on integration testing. Most programmers I know understand that in any kind of engineering every decision is a tradeoff. So testing every line of code means you are trading off speed and flexibility for very little gain in some cases (80/20?). XP introduced the idea that there isn't a tradeoff. You take things to the extreme. So as a methodology its not a good one to follow. But as a force it was absolutely beneficial. There were plenty of moderates arguing against the whole waterfall thing for years and getting nowhere. XP recognised (conciously or not, I don't know) that the zealots who enforced waterfall weren't the brighest so there was no point in putting subtle arguments to them. They would only move to something that was a bit boneheaded. And so XP as a force actually managed to move a lot of the industry more twoards the centre.

route66 14y ago
http://leanpub.com/leprechauns http://leanpub.com/leprechauns In the downloadable sample there is a nice analysis which refutes the "zealots who enforced weren't the brightest". In the short: there were no zealots. Nothing was enforced, the term "waterfall" comes up much later and it was meant as being iterative from the beginning. So one might ask: how come that this folklore is being trumpeted all around like a truth?
- discreteevent 14y ago
  I know that waterfall was originally meant to be iterative. What I meant by "the whole waterfall thing" was the practice of it in industry. And by "zealots who enforced weren't the brightest", I meant mainly management in enterprise development who arent' bright enough to understand what development is and so want to treat it as a repeatable process like manufacturing which is much easier to 'manage' than any kind of creative process.
- ExpiredLink 14y ago
  Each hype needs a straw-man. At least, when someone criticizes 'Waterfall' and praises 'Agile' you know s/he is clueless.

route66 14y ago

http://leanpub.com/leprechauns http://leanpub.com/leprechauns In the downloadable sample there is a nice analysis which refutes the "zealots who enforced weren't the brightest". In the short: there were no zealots. Nothing was enforced, the term "waterfall" comes up much later and it was meant as being iterative from the beginning. So one might ask: how come that this folklore is being trumpeted all around like a truth?

discreteevent 14y ago
I know that waterfall was originally meant to be iterative. What I meant by "the whole waterfall thing" was the practice of it in industry. And by "zealots who enforced weren't the brightest", I meant mainly management in enterprise development who arent' bright enough to understand what development is and so want to treat it as a repeatable process like manufacturing which is much easier to 'manage' than any kind of creative process.
ExpiredLink 14y ago
Each hype needs a straw-man. At least, when someone criticizes 'Waterfall' and praises 'Agile' you know s/he is clueless.