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I think that the whole movement idea of software development is pretty weak. If Joel can write down a life's work in a couple of sentences, then there is defini

by jlouis 18y ago

I think that the whole movement idea of software development is pretty weak. If Joel can write down a life's work in a couple of sentences, then there is definitely not much to it in the first place. This is a mud-slinging contest over a subject with dubious value to software development in general. it might just be me, but whenever I hear TDD/Agile/XP my heart is made sad by all the crap out there in software development. I want to design and write good programs. Now of course, that might include testing the software for errors in an automated way. I would think that most people would agree on testing as a needed tool for most software developed today and in the future. But there is a long way from testing a piece of software to the extreme views. And there, we see all kinds of disagreement. Hence the mud slinging. This is a bad bragging contest. And it is just going to take up your time. You won't gain anything from it unless you take stance. Here is mine: XP: Crap. Kill it. It completely disagrees with the way I can work soundly on a project. But take the code review part with you. TDD: Crap. Kill it. It completely disagrees with the way I develop software. Sorry. I am not going to change. And I am not becoming extinct because of my view either. Agile: Take the old ideas of iterative development and short development cycles. Take the good idea of keeping the development methodology simple. Take the good idea of providing transparency of the development status. Kill everything else. Now your stance might be different from mine. But we will gain little by discussing the finer points.

raganwald 18y ago
> If Joel can write down a life's work in a couple of sentences, then there is definitely not much to it in the first place. You seem to presume that Joel has written down Beck's life's work in a couple of sentences. The whole point of Kent's post is to refute this presumption. Joel himself wrote a post giving a twelve-point "Joel Test" for software development practices: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html I'm sure you agree that Joel did not write down his own life's work in articulating twelve simple yes or no questions about software development practices. There's more to Joel's own experience than those twelve questions, and there's more to Kent's life's work than Joel's off-hand remarks. I'll close my rebuttal to your comment by pointing out that you have just summarized your own stance on software development with some amazingly superficial and non-actionable prescriptions. But I would never presume that these prescriptions, right or wrong, would summarize your life's work either. Nor would I jump to hasty conclusions about your experience based on whether I agree or disagree with your stance on TDD.

by jlouis 18y ago

raganwald 18y ago

> If Joel can write down a life's work in a couple of sentences, then there is definitely not much to it in the first place. You seem to presume that Joel has written down Beck's life's work in a couple of sentences. The whole point of Kent's post is to refute this presumption. Joel himself wrote a post giving a twelve-point "Joel Test" for software development practices: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html I'm sure you agree that Joel did not write down his own life's work in articulating twelve simple yes or no questions about software development practices. There's more to Joel's own experience than those twelve questions, and there's more to Kent's life's work than Joel's off-hand remarks. I'll close my rebuttal to your comment by pointing out that you have just summarized your own stance on software development with some amazingly superficial and non-actionable prescriptions. But I would never presume that these prescriptions, right or wrong, would summarize your life's work either. Nor would I jump to hasty conclusions about your experience based on whether I agree or disagree with your stance on TDD.