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Agile humor

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 12:09 am
by alex.barylski
Found this funny article while browsing Google for articles...

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09 ... le_27.html

The guy is right-wing but it was a funny read if nothing else:
The rest of us have all known that Agile Methodologies are stupid, by application of any of the following well-known laws of marketing:

- anything that calls itself a "Methodology" is stupid, on general principle.
- anything that requires "evangelists" and offers seminars, exists soley for the purpose of making money.
- anything that never mentions any competition or alternatives is dubiously self-serving.
- anything that does diagrams with hand-wavy math is stupid, on general principle.
Sadly I find some truth in those four points...especially #2. :D

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 4:27 am
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
It's pretty good - and you're right about #2. It seems you just cannot have any set of ideas in programming anymore without a horde of consultants suddenly appearing to sell you stuff. I think the Scrumm one is the best - I once did try to figure out Scrumm but it's fascincatingly difficult to get hard information about it - the main website is quite literally out to sell you stuff. Granted it's honest enough to skip evangelism and consign it to a couple of web pages buried elsewhere :). First buy our courses, our books, our...

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 4:37 am
by Jenk
It's Scrum, not Scrumm :) and is not an acronym, which a lot of people seem to think it is. :)

Ken Schwaber has done a load of Google tech-talks presentations if you want to have a look. :) (and just searching his name will find many articles and other presentations about Scrum)

Consulting is big business, and tbh, if someone is going to spend their working day writing and teaching a "methodology" why the hell shouldn't they get paid for it? :) Especially if whatever practice you take up saves you/your company money.

EDIT: Christ that was a long blog.. anyway, finally finished reading it :) I have to say, it is funny. More so because the author doesn't realise he is completely contradicting himself. :) "XP is crap! Agile is crap! Here at Google, we do XP and Agile and it's great! Need I remind you - I work for Google! Check out my e-peen! Don't forget, I work at Google!" :lol:

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 1:05 pm
by alex.barylski
Jenk wrote:It's Scrum, not Scrumm :) and is not an acronym, which a lot of people seem to think it is. :)

Ken Schwaber has done a load of Google tech-talks presentations if you want to have a look. :) (and just searching his name will find many articles and other presentations about Scrum)

Consulting is big business, and tbh, if someone is going to spend their working day writing and teaching a "methodology" why the hell shouldn't they get paid for it? :) Especially if whatever practice you take up saves you/your company money.

EDIT: Christ that was a long blog.. anyway, finally finished reading it :) I have to say, it is funny. More so because the author doesn't realise he is completely contradicting himself. :) "XP is crap! Agile is crap! Here at Google, we do XP and Agile and it's great! Need I remind you - I work for Google! Check out my e-peen! Don't forget, I work at Google!" :lol:
I think he is aware he is contradicting himself. He does give a review of XP, Agile, etc from what he considers both sides of the fence, which is more than most people do (99% of articles take one side and stick to it with zeal).

Obviously there is true and false to every message. You take what you like and ignore what you don't.

Yes it was a looooong blog. Each time I thought it was over, I scrolled down and BAM more... :P

He has a funny writing style...and he does work at Google (arguably one of the most successful software development companies on the planet - so clearly there doing something right) which gives him a lot of weight, more than just some random blogger/developer. ;)

I thought it was funny...not so much informative. Ideally you read two dedicated articles, one pro and one con and learn from that. It's difficult to learn anything from a dual biased article when the points are always conflicting (in the eyes of the author anyways). I have a helluva time writting articles on theory for that reason, because I have a black/white opinion on everything. When developing, I just follow the path of least resistance which I feel leads me in the right direction, but when sitting down and thinking about an article, I can never get said what I want to say. I always have more questions to ask than answers to give, which doesn't help when helping others. :D

Cheers :)

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:44 pm
by Jenk
I meant he mentions so many times that he works at google, he is showing off that he works at google. It was a bragging blog. :)

Anyway, what is interesting that I didn't notice before, is that the blog is dated Sept 2006. The same month Ken Schwaber (Scrum guru) gave a tech talk to Google staff. (And was from then on employed by Google to continue consultations)

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:54 pm
by alex.barylski
Jenk wrote:I meant he mentions so many times that he works at google, he is showing off that he works at google. It was a bragging blog. :)

Anyway, what is interesting that I didn't notice before, is that the blog is dated Sept 2006. The same month Ken Schwaber (Scrum guru) gave a tech talk to Google staff. (And was from then on employed by Google to continue consultations)
I guess it's pretty prestigious(sp) to having worked at Google. He worked at Amazon as well I think back in 98'

But yes...he mentions that alot :P

Like shut up already...hahaha. :)

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 3:58 am
by Ollie Saunders
I'm afraid I can't really take anyone who thinls that pair programming has no value seriously. Especially the kind of person who will generalises so easily, he's exactly the kind of person who will stop believing in all conventional medicines just because it can't cure cancer yet - "just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean science knows nothing" and similarly just because Agile and XP aren't perfect and are promoted as brand names doesn't mean they hold no value.