5 ms·

I think this is a great idea. The ruby community is a wonderful thing, and part of that is reflected in the technology. However, the original Agile Manifesto

by tmorton 12y ago

I think this is a great idea. The ruby community is a wonderful thing, and part of that is reflected in the technology. However, the original Agile Manifesto was powerful because it made tradeoffs. "We value X over Y", even when Y is a valuable thing. For this HDD thing to take off, it has to make the similar tradeoffs explicit. For example: We value readable code over runtime performance. We value open-source frameworks and libraries over developing for popular ecosystems. We value inclusiveness, diversity, and respect over pure meritocracy. We value teaching, learning, and improving our craft over short-term productivity. We value creating wealth over capturing wealth.

scottefein12 12y ago
I think that's a great idea-want to start us off with a pull request? :)
- tmorton 12y ago
  Done! https://github.com/scottefein/the-happiness-manifesto/pull/7 https://github.com/scottefein/the-happiness-manifesto/pull/7
muchabi 12y ago
There's a strange, delightful joy in finding that I agree with every statement here and in the original post/repo
angersock 12y ago
That's a really nice feel-good list, but it also doesn't make a lot of sense in several cases: "We value open-source frameworks and libraries over developing for popular ecosystems." Most popular ecosystems nowadays are all open-source frameworks and libraries? Unless you're talking about Windows or Mac OSX, I guess? "We value inclusiveness, diversity, and respect over pure meritocracy." These are not mutually exclusive goals--even if they are, I'd rather have really good code, even if written by a racist or sexist, than bad code (period). Again, I'm not sure we have to make that choice. "We value creating wealth over capturing wealth." What does this even mean? This is a programming language, ffs. Your statement makes sense in, say, the heyday of APL or Smalltalk or some other very vendor-specific language, but that's not quite the case today. Are you talking about not doing data-mining to monetize your fellow man? About not creating yet-another analytics or ad platform? What then, exactly, are you driving at? "We value teaching, learning, and improving our craft over short-term productivity." Again, not mutually exclusive. Also, part of learning and improving your craft is knowing when a quick hack is the right answer instead of a full solution.
- tmorton 12y ago
  I think this comment shows exactly what I was getting at. If no one disagrees, the happiness manifesto will die in a sea of nods and shrugs. :) > I'd rather have really good code, even if written by a racist or sexist, than bad code (period). That's a perfectly valid choice. In some cases, it's a completely correct choice. But that's not the tradeoff that I want to make. Take a look at the original Agile Manifesto: http://agilemanifesto.org/ http://agilemanifesto.org/ Sometimes you can have it all: good process, good tools, good individuals and interactions. But when they conflict, the AM says that we should favor the individuals over the processes. I'm saying that as a development community, we should favor inclusiveness and respect, even at the cost of (some) technical merit. Similarly, we should favor open-source infrastructure, even at the cost of the App Store audience.
  - paulhauggis 12y ago
    "That's a perfectly valid choice. In some cases, it's a completely correct choice. But that's not the tradeoff that I want to make." The problem is that it's used too often to shun or control people that don't agree with a political ideology. A good example of this is the Mozilla CEO. An open and "accepting" community should also accept people they might not agree with..otherwise you should't call yourself open, accepting, or inclusive.
    - jonahx 12y ago
      > An open and "accepting" community should also accept people they might not agree with..otherwise you should't call yourself open, accepting, or inclusive. Being "accepting" does not imply being accepting of those who are themselves intolerant, and indeed the meaning and value of liberalism dissolves into something toothless and even dangerous when interpreted that way. If the Russel's paradox aspect of this you bugs you, then label the position "accepting of all other beliefs except those which are themselves intolerant." In practice, this is what most liberals, even die-hard ones, subscribe to.
      - angersock 12y ago
kybernetyk 12y ago
> We value inclusiveness, diversity, and respect over pure meritocracy. Heh, until not long ago a "meritocracy" was seen as something good and desirable. Nowadays it seems to be something bad (at least in some circles). Funny how things can change.
- scottefein12 12y ago
  Meritocracy is good, but not when it creates a homogenous pool of points of view.
  - gnarmis 12y ago
    points of view aren't all equally valid. Example: any pov about something that can be factually checked.
    - scottefein12 12y ago
      Sure, but if you shut out people you'll never find out if they're valid or not.
      - MichaelGG 12y ago
        What does that mean? I can generate an infinite amount of nonsense ideas. Or worse, a good amount of superficially-nice-sounding-but-terribly-flawed ideas. You can't consider every "point of view", if only from the fact that there's limited time.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- FraaJad 12y ago
  The guy that coined the word in the 1950s used the word in a negative sense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#Etymology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#Etymology
  - 12y ago
zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
The Agile Manifesto is the opposite of tradeoffs. "We value X over Y" is not a trade off, it's a dogmatic claim. "We should do X in these conditions and Y otherwise" is a trade off. For each of the items you list above, I can come up with a few scenarios where doing the opposite of what the Agile Manifesto says would be the better approach (and that's probably one of the main reasons why hardly anyone takes that Manifesto seriously these days).
- rubiquity 12y ago
  It is interpreted as a dogmatic claim but it wasn't intended to be one. After all, the very essence of the Agile Manifesto is to always be thinking.
- bunderbunder 12y ago
  There's that bit at the bottom of the Agile Manifesto: "That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more." I think the spirit of it is to try and discourage outright dogmatism. That said, I'm coming to think of the Agile Manifesto as a collection of four rather ugly false dichotomies. It's the assumption that those 4 pairs of things are somehow separable that's what's really dogmatic about the manifesto. For example: Processes and tools can often be one of the best ways to improve interactions among individuals. See Scrum, which is hardly a panacea but sometimes it works wonders. For a large project, comprehensive documentation is essential to producing working software. Ideally the documentation should be so comprehensive that it pervades the very fabric of your application in the form of good factoring, command-query separation, etc. Contract negotiation can be an important first step in customer collaboration. Everyone needs to know where everyone else's needs, boundaries and comfort zones are. Without a clear plan, how can you be sure of the best way to respond to change? See: Duke Nukem Forever, WinFS, RIM.
- apetresc 12y ago
  I think you might be confusing "tradeoff" with "compromise". "I'm willing to give up some valuable-thing-Y in exchange for more X" is a textbook example of a tradeoff.
EpicEng 12y ago
"We value readable code over runtime performance." Yes, well, that's obvious given Ruby's God awful performance. I think this is a mistake that puts Ruby squarely in the "toy language" bucket.

by tmorton 12y ago

scottefein12 12y ago

I think that's a great idea-want to start us off with a pull request? :)

tmorton 12y ago
Done! https://github.com/scottefein/the-happiness-manifesto/pull/7 https://github.com/scottefein/the-happiness-manifesto/pull/7

muchabi 12y ago

There's a strange, delightful joy in finding that I agree with every statement here and in the original post/repo

angersock 12y ago

That's a really nice feel-good list, but it also doesn't make a lot of sense in several cases: "We value open-source frameworks and libraries over developing for popular ecosystems." Most popular ecosystems nowadays are all open-source frameworks and libraries? Unless you're talking about Windows or Mac OSX, I guess? "We value inclusiveness, diversity, and respect over pure meritocracy." These are not mutually exclusive goals--even if they are, I'd rather have really good code, even if written by a racist or sexist, than bad code (period). Again, I'm not sure we have to make that choice. "We value creating wealth over capturing wealth." What does this even mean? This is a programming language, ffs. Your statement makes sense in, say, the heyday of APL or Smalltalk or some other very vendor-specific language, but that's not quite the case today. Are you talking about not doing data-mining to monetize your fellow man? About not creating yet-another analytics or ad platform? What then, exactly, are you driving at? "We value teaching, learning, and improving our craft over short-term productivity." Again, not mutually exclusive. Also, part of learning and improving your craft is knowing when a quick hack is the right answer instead of a full solution.

tmorton 12y ago
I think this comment shows exactly what I was getting at. If no one disagrees, the happiness manifesto will die in a sea of nods and shrugs. :) > I'd rather have really good code, even if written by a racist or sexist, than bad code (period). That's a perfectly valid choice. In some cases, it's a completely correct choice. But that's not the tradeoff that I want to make. Take a look at the original Agile Manifesto: http://agilemanifesto.org/ http://agilemanifesto.org/ Sometimes you can have it all: good process, good tools, good individuals and interactions. But when they conflict, the AM says that we should favor the individuals over the processes. I'm saying that as a development community, we should favor inclusiveness and respect, even at the cost of (some) technical merit. Similarly, we should favor open-source infrastructure, even at the cost of the App Store audience.
- paulhauggis 12y ago
  "That's a perfectly valid choice. In some cases, it's a completely correct choice. But that's not the tradeoff that I want to make." The problem is that it's used too often to shun or control people that don't agree with a political ideology. A good example of this is the Mozilla CEO. An open and "accepting" community should also accept people they might not agree with..otherwise you should't call yourself open, accepting, or inclusive.
  - jonahx 12y ago
    > An open and "accepting" community should also accept people they might not agree with..otherwise you should't call yourself open, accepting, or inclusive. Being "accepting" does not imply being accepting of those who are themselves intolerant, and indeed the meaning and value of liberalism dissolves into something toothless and even dangerous when interpreted that way. If the Russel's paradox aspect of this you bugs you, then label the position "accepting of all other beliefs except those which are themselves intolerant." In practice, this is what most liberals, even die-hard ones, subscribe to.
    - angersock 12y ago

kybernetyk 12y ago

> We value inclusiveness, diversity, and respect over pure meritocracy. Heh, until not long ago a "meritocracy" was seen as something good and desirable. Nowadays it seems to be something bad (at least in some circles). Funny how things can change.

scottefein12 12y ago
Meritocracy is good, but not when it creates a homogenous pool of points of view.
- gnarmis 12y ago
  points of view aren't all equally valid. Example: any pov about something that can be factually checked.
  - scottefein12 12y ago
    Sure, but if you shut out people you'll never find out if they're valid or not.
    - MichaelGG 12y ago
      What does that mean? I can generate an infinite amount of nonsense ideas. Or worse, a good amount of superficially-nice-sounding-but-terribly-flawed ideas. You can't consider every "point of view", if only from the fact that there's limited time.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
FraaJad 12y ago
The guy that coined the word in the 1950s used the word in a negative sense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#Etymology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#Etymology
- 12y ago

zak_mc_kracken 12y ago

The Agile Manifesto is the opposite of tradeoffs. "We value X over Y" is not a trade off, it's a dogmatic claim. "We should do X in these conditions and Y otherwise" is a trade off. For each of the items you list above, I can come up with a few scenarios where doing the opposite of what the Agile Manifesto says would be the better approach (and that's probably one of the main reasons why hardly anyone takes that Manifesto seriously these days).

rubiquity 12y ago
It is interpreted as a dogmatic claim but it wasn't intended to be one. After all, the very essence of the Agile Manifesto is to always be thinking.
bunderbunder 12y ago
There's that bit at the bottom of the Agile Manifesto: "That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more." I think the spirit of it is to try and discourage outright dogmatism. That said, I'm coming to think of the Agile Manifesto as a collection of four rather ugly false dichotomies. It's the assumption that those 4 pairs of things are somehow separable that's what's really dogmatic about the manifesto. For example: Processes and tools can often be one of the best ways to improve interactions among individuals. See Scrum, which is hardly a panacea but sometimes it works wonders. For a large project, comprehensive documentation is essential to producing working software. Ideally the documentation should be so comprehensive that it pervades the very fabric of your application in the form of good factoring, command-query separation, etc. Contract negotiation can be an important first step in customer collaboration. Everyone needs to know where everyone else's needs, boundaries and comfort zones are. Without a clear plan, how can you be sure of the best way to respond to change? See: Duke Nukem Forever, WinFS, RIM.
apetresc 12y ago
I think you might be confusing "tradeoff" with "compromise". "I'm willing to give up some valuable-thing-Y in exchange for more X" is a textbook example of a tradeoff.

EpicEng 12y ago

"We value readable code over runtime performance." Yes, well, that's obvious given Ruby's God awful performance. I think this is a mistake that puts Ruby squarely in the "toy language" bucket.