4 ms·

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 th

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.

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.