3 ms·

In the late 90s, I worked in two different Lisp companies (one of which went on to become quite successful). They were, in many ways, far more modern than the a

by ekidd 13y ago

In the late 90s, I worked in two different Lisp companies (one of which went on to become quite successful). They were, in many ways, far more modern than the average C++ shop of the era: They accepted that programming could be exploratory, that unit tests were a great thing, and that you wouldn't know what you wanted until after you'd already built half of it. And yet… I remember programmers who disappeared for months at a time to work on "their" modules. Integration phases where we tried to combine wildly incompatible components after 6 months of separate work. The breathless joy of seeing an actual regression test suite for the first time. The endless arguments trying to find the ideal design. And we all thought this was the "right way" to develop software! I remember Beck's Extreme Programming. For me, it came as a bolt from the sky, obviously radical and brilliant. It turned me from a clueless junior programmer into somebody who took over and turned around a 150,000 line, 14-year-old C++ project, a project which everybody thought had succumbed to terminal bit rot. Unit tests. Short iterations. The planning game, a.k.a., "Here, let me take your list of features, and tell you what each one costs. Now you decide what order we build them in." Man, does it bring back memories. Of course, that was pretty much the shining high point. Within just a few years, Beck's idiosyncratic personal vision had been replaced by the "agile manifesto", and then by an entire consulting industry. Good riddance to all that. But you know, it's been a long time since I heard somebody say "integration phase" or "object-oriented analysis." And I couldn't be happier.

nickbauman 13y ago
I had a similar epiphany when I read Beck's book around 2000 or so. I don't think the Agile community has added much if anything to the work Beck originally laid out, either. In fact the term "Scrummerfall" is now in common usage here in Minneapolis.
- Nimi 13y ago
  Well, that was somewhat predictable. You've got a lot of managers. Some of them don't like to code, and regardless, all of them certainly need to be employed. What would they do if their shop started doing XP? One or two can become PMs or coaches, but what happens if you have much more managers? At the risk of sounding somewhat loony, I think Marx said something about the middle class (in his definition: the class between the proletariat engaging in production, and the ruling class of capitalists) trying to preserve the benefits it gets from its social role. Can't find a citation though.
  - vanderZwan 13y ago
    It's funny that there is a quote, recently made famous by Civ 4, stating "the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the expanding needs of the bureaucracy," while management would be a much better fit than bureaucracy IMO. Also, in practice civil services are much more efficient in many situations than their market alternatives (possibly because they pretty much epitomise the proletariat you mentioned).
    - mathattack 13y ago
      I haven't shared your experience with efficient civil service. In the US, everything without market pressure fills with bloat.
      - vanderZwan 13y ago
        In terms of customer interaction it's obviously a terrible experience, even when you do meet helpful people. But have you actually gone through a process where the civil service was more expensive than the market alternative? By and large, the empirical data does not support the public perception of government (and remember there are many layers of "government") being hugely wasteful, especially when looking at money wasted on administration compared to the market. http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=20 http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=20 Also, the government is under a market pressure of a sort: can I "sell" this budget to the people who have to vote for me as a politician? EDIT: Of course, I'm not saying that civil service is good by definition - just that when done right there are places where it's a much better solution than a free market one. Also, corruption can be an issue of course - as I understand one of the big reasons Greece is in trouble is because of the corrupt civil service, which caused it to bloat as well.
        mathattack 13y ago
        Catholic schools generally get by on less money per puli than public. State run liquor stores are more expensive than private. Even still, it's hard to be more expensive when your cost of capital is near zero. (Taxpayers foot the bill)

by ekidd 13y ago

nickbauman 13y ago

I had a similar epiphany when I read Beck's book around 2000 or so. I don't think the Agile community has added much if anything to the work Beck originally laid out, either. In fact the term "Scrummerfall" is now in common usage here in Minneapolis.

Nimi 13y ago
Well, that was somewhat predictable. You've got a lot of managers. Some of them don't like to code, and regardless, all of them certainly need to be employed. What would they do if their shop started doing XP? One or two can become PMs or coaches, but what happens if you have much more managers? At the risk of sounding somewhat loony, I think Marx said something about the middle class (in his definition: the class between the proletariat engaging in production, and the ruling class of capitalists) trying to preserve the benefits it gets from its social role. Can't find a citation though.
- vanderZwan 13y ago
  It's funny that there is a quote, recently made famous by Civ 4, stating "the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the expanding needs of the bureaucracy," while management would be a much better fit than bureaucracy IMO. Also, in practice civil services are much more efficient in many situations than their market alternatives (possibly because they pretty much epitomise the proletariat you mentioned).
  - mathattack 13y ago
    I haven't shared your experience with efficient civil service. In the US, everything without market pressure fills with bloat.
    - vanderZwan 13y ago
      In terms of customer interaction it's obviously a terrible experience, even when you do meet helpful people. But have you actually gone through a process where the civil service was more expensive than the market alternative? By and large, the empirical data does not support the public perception of government (and remember there are many layers of "government") being hugely wasteful, especially when looking at money wasted on administration compared to the market. http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=20 http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=20 Also, the government is under a market pressure of a sort: can I "sell" this budget to the people who have to vote for me as a politician? EDIT: Of course, I'm not saying that civil service is good by definition - just that when done right there are places where it's a much better solution than a free market one. Also, corruption can be an issue of course - as I understand one of the big reasons Greece is in trouble is because of the corrupt civil service, which caused it to bloat as well.
      - mathattack 13y ago
        Catholic schools generally get by on less money per puli than public. State run liquor stores are more expensive than private. Even still, it's hard to be more expensive when your cost of capital is near zero. (Taxpayers foot the bill)