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> Requirements gathering: fluid, not dictated > Requirements used to be handed down. A PM writes a PRD, engineers estimate it, and the spec gets frozen before
by kelseyfrog 8mo ago
> Requirements gathering: fluid, not dictated
> Requirements used to be handed down. A PM writes a PRD, engineers estimate it, and the spec gets frozen before a line of code is written. That made sense when building was expensive. When every feature took weeks, you had to decide upfront what to build.
In the 20 years I've worked in software. I've never even seen a shop that works this way. From 20 person teams to 10,000 employee companies. Maybe I've been lucky. but to me it reads as a straw man. Something to punch against that doesn't really exist.
> Design used to be something you did before writing code. You’d whiteboard the architecture, debate trade-offs, draw boxes and arrows, then go implement it.
Again, I've never seen this. Usually it'd be a senior engineer who spun up a project, implemented a proof of concept, and then mid and junior staff would be onboard and work within the project's design patterns, occasionally refactoring the design if it outgrew its original footprint.
I don't necessarily disagree with the agent workflow, but we should compare it to what actually proceeded it, not some imagined dummy process that never really existed. It weakens, not strengthens, the piece.
Note: I'm sure you experienced these, but have you considered that you're an edge case? I've equally considered that perhaps I've just been extraordinary fortunate in my career.
- p_l 8mo agoRemember, Waterfall model was AFAIK originally just an example of pathologically bad managed project in a conference talk :V
- paleotrope 8mo agoAlmost everything is a strawman
- scott_w 8mo agoUnfortunately it started to be taken seriously, at least by academics who went on to infect an industry. I shit you not when I tell you the Software Project Management module I took at university described Agile as “Waterfall but done much faster” back in 2010/2011.
- p_l 8mo agoIt's a lot like "GOTO considered harmful" where everyone knows the title changed by von Neumann but not the actual discussion (both by Dijkstra and the response by Knuth)
- lazyasciiart 8mo agoI’ve seen this at more than one company.
- ivan_gammel 8mo agoI’m working in the industry since 1999, spent a lot of time in regulated industries and fully agree with you, waterfall was never the process. The actual process could generate a lot of artifacts, but it was always async, not strict happens-before relationship.
- perrygeo 8mo agoRequirements handed down - never seen it in 25 years. The requirements are always fluid, by definition. At best, you get a wish list which needs to be ammended with reality. If you have completely static requirements, you don't need an engineer! You just do it. Engineering IS refining the requirements according to empirical data. Once you have requirements that are correct (for all well-defined definitions of "correct"), the code implementation is so trival that an LLM can do it :-)
- scott_w 8mo agoSame here. It’s like the author just finishes their Software Project Management module at uni, saw AI and had their mind blown without ever learning this thing called “The Agile Manifesto” exists!
- Jenk 8mo ago> In the 20 years I've worked in software. I've never even seen a shop that works this way. From 20 person teams to 10,000 employee companies. Maybe I've been lucky. but to me it reads as a straw man. Something to punch against that doesn't really exist 30 years ago it was the norm. It really is true that the industry (standard) has shifted a lot in that time. But I work at a place like this right now. I was hired by the new CTO to help them change this, having spent the previous 20 years actively avoiding places just like this. Project-based planning by a roomful of not-technical people: Funding, scope, design, shape of team, deadlines, tech stacks, vendors etc. all "locked in" before any engineer is even approached, let alone asked for input. I cannot overstate how uncanny it feels to be working here - like I have actually time travelled back to the 90s.
- cbm-vic-20 8mo agoIn the 30 years I've worked in software, I've seen more than one shop that worked this way. Then "eXtreme Programming" and Scrum rose up and morged into "agile", and that pretty much went away.
- snapetom 8mo agoAt my most recent job, 2022-2025, I saw this under the guise of SAFE agile. Previously, no, you're right. I've always worked in aggressive engineering teams with Product and Engineering closely aligned. My last company, though, was utter undisciplined chaos for decades. SAFE was an attempt to try something to corral teams together even though it basically became waterfall.
- AnimalMuppet 8mo agoHonest question: Is waterfall better or worse than utter undisciplined chaos?
- snapetom 8mo agoI really don't know how to answer that. I've seemed to experience the peak worst of both. In waterfall, I was a young programmer in a big, disciplined, corporate environment and spent about 2/3 of my time doing documentation and meetings rather than writing code. I nearly switched careers because that wasn't what I signed up for. In chaosland, I came in as a PM well after the company's heydey trying to sort out the mess. I wasn't there for the trips on yachts with everyone drunk. I spent my years there asking, "wtf were you guys thinking" and the answer was always, "seemed like a good idea at the time."