Comments on: Agile (Soon) Considered Harmful?

By: Henrik Jernevad

Henrik Jernevad — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:09:53 +0000

For more comments, see the scrumdevelopment yahoo group discussion on this post.

By: Alistair

Alistair — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:42:24 +0000

XP started the zealous push for "emergent design" and Yagni ("You Aren't Gonna Need It"). As with other practices, it was a "What happens if you peg the needle to one side?" experiment that succeeded remarkably well for what it proposed.

The trouble was that Kent and his crew were too good with the advertising program, and many people thought that because it succeeded sometimes, it was defined to suceed always, and leapt on those phrases without thinking. ("Yay! We don't have to think any more!")

There is a middle road --- it's not actually sitting on the emergent design line as many agile zealots think, but it's typically far closer to the emergent design line than most classically trained programmers and software architects think.

Alistair

By: Henrik Jernevad

Henrik Jernevad — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:06:51 +0000

Thanks for posting dear Mr Coward.

If that is what you think and live by, then you are one of the well informed ones and hopefully successful ones as well. I fear however, that many developers don’t bother to hear much more than “BDUF is bad”. Black and white is easier.

By: Anonymous Coward

Anonymous Coward — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 09:42:28 +0000

I always thought that Agile was about “just enough design, at just the right time”, so to speak, not “no design.” In other words, “emergent design” does not equal “no design”, in my book. It means, just enough design, as soon as you need it, but no sooner. Obviously, knowing what is enough, and knowing when you need it is not a black and white question, and one which things like XP tries to address in an “as simple as possible but no simpler” way.