You Want IT When?

One of the difficulties I have with the Agile software methodologies and its proponents is that they go to far.  They are often susceptible to hyperbole while hawking their methodology like used car salesmen.   Their embracing of the practice of refactoring is one example of this. Of course, we should refactor, but refactoring isn’t a design methodology,  it isn’t a way to be agile, and it doesn’t help deliver software faster.  Refactoring as advocated by the Agile processes is essentially a design methodology.  A team following Agile arrives at an optimal design and implementation via a series of iterations and refactoring efforts.  Refactoring as a design methodology is incompatible with the Agile goals of delivering faster and accommodating change anytime in the project life-cycle.

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The Agile software development practices are in their infancy stage as evidenced by the number of variants that are being promoted in popular print and usage today:  Scrum and XP being two popular variants.  Clearly the Agile practices are still evolving, and I believe what will eventually emerge are a set of Agile practices that look awfully familiar to traditional approaches.  The question is, is once the Agile community arrives there, will the conflict cease?

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There’s a lot of activity and promotion of the Agile software methodologies that can be found on both the Internet and in books today.  Its adherents are zealous in their commitment to the Agile principles codified in the principles behind the Agile Manifesto.    I first became interested in the Agile development practices when the Extreme Programming practices began generating a lot of interest in the software community.  My first reaction to this was to be turned off.  The name conjured up images of chaos, cowboy programmers, and death march development projects — practices I am all too familiar with.  I found the advocacy of pair programming to be unnatural and impractical.

After reading many articles published by Agile proponents, I remain steadfast in my beliefs that something is wrong, and rather than advancing the state of the art practices in Software Development, Agile proponents are setting us back, and in this world where jobs easily cross international boarders, especially easy in software, we need practices that demonstrate the value proposition for keeping teams here in the US: practices that deliver reliably and predictably on commitments and practices that can demonstrate improvements in productivity and quality.

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