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I believe the old ways, which agile destroyed, will come back because the implementation isn’t the hardest part now. Agile recognized correctly that implementat

by nemo44x 7mo ago

I believe the old ways, which agile destroyed, will come back because the implementation isn’t the hardest part now. Agile recognized correctly that implementation was the hard part to predict and that specification through requirements docs, UML, waterfall, etc. were out of date by the time the code was cooked. I don’t think we’ll get those exact things back but we will see more specification and design than we do today.

bwestergard 7mo ago
Agile was a response to the coordination problems in certain types of firms. Waterfall persisted in organizations that have and require a more traditional bureaucratic structure. Waterfall makes sense if you are building a space probe or an unemployment insurance system, agile makes sense if you are trying to find product market fit for a smartphone app.
- nemo44x 7mo ago
  Yeah and why I don’t think we’ll go back to that exactly. But software designed more deliberately and requirements that are more detailed and “documented” if that’s the right word?
miraculixx 7mo ago
Sure because it worked great when we tried last time, right? Just spec it out first, and AI will churn out the perfect app. Not. For anyone who hasn't worked in a waterfall project and would like to try: You are kidding yourself. There is no such thing as a perfect spec. Read that again and say it outloud. It took humanity 50 years to figure out that perfect specs are impossible, unless of course you know exactly(!) what you need. And even then, the specs are never complete. The reality is that we often don't know, and can't know, what we want, exactly, until we actually see and experience what we said we wanted. Then we adjust. Try again. That's the reality for individuals already. By simply using logic we can deduct that entities made of more than one individual, aka companies, will not behave better. They just make it look better by giving you a nice document that says "we want this!", only to then come around when they see what they got, and to claim "wait, we didn't mean it like so!". That's just human nature. Not much we can do. AI will not change that. So when some people think AI will deliver perfect software given perfect specs, hence we have to write the specs first! That is just missing the boat my a mile. Agile is not a process but a human-friendly way of doing things. It simply says hey you want this? Let me build that and show you. Then let's adjust or move to the next thing. Rinse and repeat. Agile works because it matches how humans think and act. Step by step, day by day.
- nemo44x 7mo ago
  It’s why I said not those exact things. But already today when developing with agents you get best results from selecting it as much as possible so it can then logically break it into smaller contexts and iterate. It’s not just dropping in case and getting a functional product. But more up front design seems to work best. Very explicit design.

by nemo44x 7mo ago

bwestergard 7mo ago

Agile was a response to the coordination problems in certain types of firms. Waterfall persisted in organizations that have and require a more traditional bureaucratic structure. Waterfall makes sense if you are building a space probe or an unemployment insurance system, agile makes sense if you are trying to find product market fit for a smartphone app.

nemo44x 7mo ago
Yeah and why I don’t think we’ll go back to that exactly. But software designed more deliberately and requirements that are more detailed and “documented” if that’s the right word?

miraculixx 7mo ago

Sure because it worked great when we tried last time, right? Just spec it out first, and AI will churn out the perfect app. Not. For anyone who hasn't worked in a waterfall project and would like to try: You are kidding yourself. There is no such thing as a perfect spec. Read that again and say it outloud. It took humanity 50 years to figure out that perfect specs are impossible, unless of course you know exactly(!) what you need. And even then, the specs are never complete. The reality is that we often don't know, and can't know, what we want, exactly, until we actually see and experience what we said we wanted. Then we adjust. Try again. That's the reality for individuals already. By simply using logic we can deduct that entities made of more than one individual, aka companies, will not behave better. They just make it look better by giving you a nice document that says "we want this!", only to then come around when they see what they got, and to claim "wait, we didn't mean it like so!". That's just human nature. Not much we can do. AI will not change that. So when some people think AI will deliver perfect software given perfect specs, hence we have to write the specs first! That is just missing the boat my a mile. Agile is not a process but a human-friendly way of doing things. It simply says hey you want this? Let me build that and show you. Then let's adjust or move to the next thing. Rinse and repeat. Agile works because it matches how humans think and act. Step by step, day by day.

nemo44x 7mo ago
It’s why I said not those exact things. But already today when developing with agents you get best results from selecting it as much as possible so it can then logically break it into smaller contexts and iterate. It’s not just dropping in case and getting a functional product. But more up front design seems to work best. Very explicit design.