From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2009-01-15T15:10:29+09:00
Subject: Re: Why Ruby?

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On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 06:15:15AM +0900, Todd Benson wrote:
> I didn't copy thread material, because my thought is not directed at
> any one conversation, but I thought it would be appropriate to say
> something in this thread.
>=20
> Is it plausible people are using Agile development because modern day
> consumer-type software has a half-life of about, umm, 3 hours?  After
> that, it has to be mended and/or replaced.  In fact, the whole
> paradigm in Ruby seems to be based on this premise.
>=20
> I love the language, and will never stop using it, but Agile
> development sounds very much like snake oil.

Actually, my take is that some people realized that there are some
beneficial development practices that we should be using -- but haven't
really been using in any of the major development methodologies.  These
people decided this was the Promised Land of development, and put
together a series of specific methodologies (most famous probably being
X-treme Programming), then they all noticed there are systemic
similarities to these different formal methodologies they all invented.

Next thing you know, they're being marketed under the umbrella term
"Agile".

Eventually, I think people will come to the realization that there are
some good things to be learned from this Agile stuff, but the specifics
of requiring that everybody pair up, or tack 3x5 cards to the wall, or
whatever, are less necessary.  At that point, of course, some new people
will notice the dire necessity of a new set of development principles,
and the next run of the Next Big Methodology craze will happen.

Each of these waves will surely teach us some new and important things
about software development as a process -- and each of them will, for a
short time, seem to be a Silver Bullet to a lot of people, before cooler
heads prevail and we start to see the difference between the specific
Methodology and the valuabe, generalized development principles.

=2E . . but I may just be full of it.  Maybe Agile Methodologies are really
where it's at.  Maybe it's more tied to the current generation of
programming languages than anything else, and as long as we're using Ruby
we should just use an Agile Methodology.  I'm certainly not the world's
foremost expert.

Regardless, I don't think that calling "Agile" a "snake oil" is really
accurate.  While I'm no Grandmaster of Uber-Hackery, I'm pretty sure I
can recognize a few good principles of development now and then, and
there are at least a couple of them woven into what it means to be
"Agile", at least according to the Agile Manifesto.

--=20
Chad Perrin [ content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
I was essentially an anarcho-capitalist in high school, rather than
wasting the folly of my youth on something lame like revolutionary
communism.

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