4 ms·

I'm reading the reviews and I realize that I don't have the background and years of experience to understand the software development world as it was in the yea

by Glide 13y ago

I'm reading the reviews and I realize that I don't have the background and years of experience to understand the software development world as it was in the year 2000 (I graduated in 2006). I get some of it, because of war stories. But I know I'm missing a huge piece of it. Like when did some of the older practices come about? Was it in the 90s? Late 90s? 80s? Are most of the reviewers curmudgeons that that watched the SDLC landscape change before their very eyes as their certifications lost value?

nickbauman 13y ago
If you mean Waterfall, the term was adapted from civil engineering, which of course made a lot of sense for software (sarcasm). One of the earliest papers on the process was in the 70s by William Royce where the term waterfall was used to describe software development at its worst.
- svachalek 13y ago
  The "spiral" model was documented in 1986 and in common practice long before Extreme Programming hit the shelves. I never saw a waterfall-like process in use in the 90s except in the DoD. It was never more than a strawman for XP to beat up on. (Edit: On a hunch I just looked up when scrum originated: 1986 as well.)
  - Someone 13y ago
    Some other arguments that show that XP wasn't as new as the book argues to be: - I doubt Lisp, Smalltalk, Forth, time sharing Basic and similar tools were invented for the waterfall model, and all were available in the '70s. - Weinberger advocated egoless programming in 1971. Also, looking back at the 1960-1975 timeframe, nobody would have accepted XP as a methodology. I can see the discussion "what do you mean by 'if it turns out we need more memory we simply move to a larger computer'? Ordering one will take months, it will cost us thousands of dollars a month, and we will have to build a new computer room. And no, it is not acceptable if that accounting program you are writing turns out to be a glorified checkbook because that is what you can cram into the machine." Also, it wasn't as easy to get a MVP because there were so few libraries to build on. IBM would happily license you their 'database' software or their time sharing software, but you better be sure that you needed it, because you paid for it by the month. But it just wasn't possible to work on the idea "don't worry about the 3D graphics. We'll eventually pick a library, but that can wait." A devil's advocate would argue that the XP book just was a good summary article with great marketing that due to pure luck appeared at just the right time.
    - nickbauman 13y ago
      The book makes no such assertion: "XP frightens or angers some people who encounter it for the first time. However, none of the ideas in XP are new" – Kent Beck _Extreme Programming Explained_ ©1999
- mariusz79 13y ago
  Like it or not but the waterfall method does make a lot of sense in software development. It may be useless if you're trying to create another billion dollar useless web app, but is very helpful when you have to create software for mission-critical applications.
  - sandfox 13y ago
    "mission critical"...
    - alextingle 13y ago
      Yeah. Mission critical. It's not just a buzz word - there exists software that is critical to completion of the mission. Examples: Missile guidance system. Space probe communication subroutine.
  - nickbauman 13y ago
    I think Beck explicitly states mission critical as a bad candidate for XP. In reality very few systems are mission critical. And of many mission critical systems, only a small part of the code is actually mission critical.
  - cratermoon 13y ago
    You mean like healthcare.gov?
  - selimthegrim 13y ago
    I currently work at a company making highly FDA regulated software. We once missed a contract with a big drugmaker due to lack of documentation and QA process standards. The pendulum then swung the other way towards waterfall, to the point where people would write 50-page reports about transferring a database schema from MS SQL to Firebird without mentioning that fact that all the databases had the same username and password sitting in the Registry of the client computers that connected to it for everyone to see. (obviously not anymore). To remove a nonfunctional form field I was once asked to fill out 20 pages of documentation (before I threw a hissy fit and some process Nazis left the company)
- Glide 13y ago
  The part I wanted to understand more was the culture of workplaces that agile would affect in the coming decade. What created cultures that adhered to waterfall. I find asking, "how did we get here?" fascinating.
Joeri 13y ago
It's not just software. All business processes have been undergoing change from top-down to bottom-up processes as people realize those companies which allow good ideas to percolate from the bottom win in the marketplace. The driver here is the internet. It used to be the case that you didn't come into contact with good or bad practices except by working in a place they were applied, but the internet ensures everyone can now read online what works and what doesn't.
- walshemj 13y ago
  I think your looking at the internet with rose tinted glasses business practices go in and out of fashion and some times back into fashion again. I directly saw this as I worked on the BS5750 standard and saw the rise and fall of TQM I think you will find that in traditional engineering does stick closer to traditional project planning PERT/TQM and so on as its a lot more embarrassing and costly if a bridge falls down :-) Its also a lot easier to do in manufacturing is easy you can measure the tolerances on a piston on an engine line and flag thats a defect or not - much harder to do in software.
asdasf 13y ago
Certifications? No, the whole "certified bullshit expert" thing started with XP. Before that people just did their jobs and didn't invent religious practices that had to be adhered to in order to do so.
- bguthrie 13y ago
  There has never been an official XP certification. There is a ScrumMaster certification. I'd suggest that you avoid anyone who claims certified expertise in XP. And no, people didn't "just do their jobs." Management methodology isn't a new idea.
- tmcneal 13y ago
  PMP certifications were established in 1984[1], and while I don't think the certification itself is nearly as abused as "Certified ScrumMaster", PMI and Six-Sigma are definitely touted as panacea, especially in the enterprise. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Management_Institute http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Management_Institute
  - asdasf 13y ago
    PMI in 1984 was exactly what it says in the name, project management. It didn't become a programming methodology thing until the agile craze. Six sigma was big in the industrial world, not programming.
stonemetal 13y ago
Grady Booch first published the Booch method around '91. He merged his stuff with a few other guys to make UML and the Unified Process a few years later. The rise of big process in software was fairly fast. The push back you see is more a misunderstanding, they see it as a transition from no process -> process -> no process rather than no process -> too much process -> lighter process.
- Glide 13y ago
  Thanks, I never heard of the Booch method before. So time wise something like UML and Unified Process actually occurred after XP and Scrum? That kind of changes the timeline I had in my head about this. I almost feel like making something to figure out all of this.
  - parasubvert 13y ago
    RUP and UML happened around the same time as XP, in 1998, but it was the culmination of a decade of so-called "object oriented methodologies" being discussed between Booch, Rumbaugh, and Jacobsen. The latter coined the term "use case" in his method. RUP and UML combined the three approaches and modelling notations (I'd say 70% Rumbaugh, 20% Booch, 10% Jacobsen)

by Glide 13y ago

nickbauman 13y ago

If you mean Waterfall, the term was adapted from civil engineering, which of course made a lot of sense for software (sarcasm). One of the earliest papers on the process was in the 70s by William Royce where the term waterfall was used to describe software development at its worst.

svachalek 13y ago
The "spiral" model was documented in 1986 and in common practice long before Extreme Programming hit the shelves. I never saw a waterfall-like process in use in the 90s except in the DoD. It was never more than a strawman for XP to beat up on. (Edit: On a hunch I just looked up when scrum originated: 1986 as well.)
- Someone 13y ago
  Some other arguments that show that XP wasn't as new as the book argues to be: - I doubt Lisp, Smalltalk, Forth, time sharing Basic and similar tools were invented for the waterfall model, and all were available in the '70s. - Weinberger advocated egoless programming in 1971. Also, looking back at the 1960-1975 timeframe, nobody would have accepted XP as a methodology. I can see the discussion "what do you mean by 'if it turns out we need more memory we simply move to a larger computer'? Ordering one will take months, it will cost us thousands of dollars a month, and we will have to build a new computer room. And no, it is not acceptable if that accounting program you are writing turns out to be a glorified checkbook because that is what you can cram into the machine." Also, it wasn't as easy to get a MVP because there were so few libraries to build on. IBM would happily license you their 'database' software or their time sharing software, but you better be sure that you needed it, because you paid for it by the month. But it just wasn't possible to work on the idea "don't worry about the 3D graphics. We'll eventually pick a library, but that can wait." A devil's advocate would argue that the XP book just was a good summary article with great marketing that due to pure luck appeared at just the right time.
  - nickbauman 13y ago
    The book makes no such assertion: "XP frightens or angers some people who encounter it for the first time. However, none of the ideas in XP are new" – Kent Beck _Extreme Programming Explained_ ©1999
mariusz79 13y ago
Like it or not but the waterfall method does make a lot of sense in software development. It may be useless if you're trying to create another billion dollar useless web app, but is very helpful when you have to create software for mission-critical applications.
- sandfox 13y ago
  "mission critical"...
  - alextingle 13y ago
    Yeah. Mission critical. It's not just a buzz word - there exists software that is critical to completion of the mission. Examples: Missile guidance system. Space probe communication subroutine.
- nickbauman 13y ago
  I think Beck explicitly states mission critical as a bad candidate for XP. In reality very few systems are mission critical. And of many mission critical systems, only a small part of the code is actually mission critical.
- cratermoon 13y ago
  You mean like healthcare.gov?
- selimthegrim 13y ago
  I currently work at a company making highly FDA regulated software. We once missed a contract with a big drugmaker due to lack of documentation and QA process standards. The pendulum then swung the other way towards waterfall, to the point where people would write 50-page reports about transferring a database schema from MS SQL to Firebird without mentioning that fact that all the databases had the same username and password sitting in the Registry of the client computers that connected to it for everyone to see. (obviously not anymore). To remove a nonfunctional form field I was once asked to fill out 20 pages of documentation (before I threw a hissy fit and some process Nazis left the company)
Glide 13y ago
The part I wanted to understand more was the culture of workplaces that agile would affect in the coming decade. What created cultures that adhered to waterfall. I find asking, "how did we get here?" fascinating.

Joeri 13y ago

It's not just software. All business processes have been undergoing change from top-down to bottom-up processes as people realize those companies which allow good ideas to percolate from the bottom win in the marketplace. The driver here is the internet. It used to be the case that you didn't come into contact with good or bad practices except by working in a place they were applied, but the internet ensures everyone can now read online what works and what doesn't.

walshemj 13y ago
I think your looking at the internet with rose tinted glasses business practices go in and out of fashion and some times back into fashion again. I directly saw this as I worked on the BS5750 standard and saw the rise and fall of TQM I think you will find that in traditional engineering does stick closer to traditional project planning PERT/TQM and so on as its a lot more embarrassing and costly if a bridge falls down :-) Its also a lot easier to do in manufacturing is easy you can measure the tolerances on a piston on an engine line and flag thats a defect or not - much harder to do in software.

asdasf 13y ago

Certifications? No, the whole "certified bullshit expert" thing started with XP. Before that people just did their jobs and didn't invent religious practices that had to be adhered to in order to do so.

bguthrie 13y ago
There has never been an official XP certification. There is a ScrumMaster certification. I'd suggest that you avoid anyone who claims certified expertise in XP. And no, people didn't "just do their jobs." Management methodology isn't a new idea.
tmcneal 13y ago
PMP certifications were established in 1984[1], and while I don't think the certification itself is nearly as abused as "Certified ScrumMaster", PMI and Six-Sigma are definitely touted as panacea, especially in the enterprise. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Management_Institute http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Management_Institute
- asdasf 13y ago
  PMI in 1984 was exactly what it says in the name, project management. It didn't become a programming methodology thing until the agile craze. Six sigma was big in the industrial world, not programming.

stonemetal 13y ago

Grady Booch first published the Booch method around '91. He merged his stuff with a few other guys to make UML and the Unified Process a few years later. The rise of big process in software was fairly fast. The push back you see is more a misunderstanding, they see it as a transition from no process -> process -> no process rather than no process -> too much process -> lighter process.

Glide 13y ago
Thanks, I never heard of the Booch method before. So time wise something like UML and Unified Process actually occurred after XP and Scrum? That kind of changes the timeline I had in my head about this. I almost feel like making something to figure out all of this.
- parasubvert 13y ago
  RUP and UML happened around the same time as XP, in 1998, but it was the culmination of a decade of so-called "object oriented methodologies" being discussed between Booch, Rumbaugh, and Jacobsen. The latter coined the term "use case" in his method. RUP and UML combined the three approaches and modelling notations (I'd say 70% Rumbaugh, 20% Booch, 10% Jacobsen)