Thoughts on… the death of agile
This post by William Caputo yesterday talks about the death of agile programming as a valid model for iteratively developing software. I’ve skimmed plenty of books, read plenty of blog posts, and heard plenty of people talk about it. And while I’ve always liked most of what I’ve heard, I’ve never completely drank the Kool-aid about pair programming, developer-centric two week scrums, stand ups, and their cohorts. I’ve never been a card carrying member of the Agile Superfriends.
At first, I felt bad about not diving whole-heartedly into agile development method. All the cool kids were doing it, and I wasn’t jumping on the bandwagon. Why?
Was I being an arrogant jerk? “I’m too good for this stuff. You’re wasting your time”. I dont think so. Like I said, I’ve always liked most of what I’ve heard about agile programming.
Am I already an old curmudgeon who can’t learn new tricks? “You silly kids and your Agile… just ship code!” No, first of all I’m only 26 (27 in on the 20th!). And I love keeping up on whats going on in the space right now. Working at Punchbowl with Blake gives me the freedom to experiment with all kinds of new software and process, and we frequently put cutting edge technologies into production.
Is it because I live in the middle of nowhere? “Boston is 75 minutes away… I can’t go hang out at all the hackfests and Boston.RB meetings! WAAAAA!” No way. In this day and age, location is irrelevant.
At the end of the day, I always just had a slightly off taste in my mouth when it came to agile. But my problem was different than Caputo’s. Caputo’s problem, from what I gather, is that Agile has been watered down over the years so as to not hurt anyone’s feelings. It was watered down so that everyone could play (CEOs, finance people, and in his example, janitors) when that wasnt the point. But I never thought of it that way.
I think my big stopper with Agile is that it encourages people to run around screaming “LOOK AT ME I’M SO FUCKING AGILE!!! YOU SHOULD BE TOO!” Reminds me of something….
I’ve seen people turn down jobs because the company hiring wasn’t agile enough. I’ve seen people denied jobs because they weren’t agile enough for the company.
A process is a guide, a suggestion. When it becomes a doctrine, a religion, you’re betraying the message, and you need to snap the fuck out of it. If Agile really is dead, then this kind of shit must have it spinning in its grave.
So as it turns out maybe I am a bit of a curmudgeon — and if you know me then you know that I am an arrogant jerk — but I’m a playfully arrogant jerk :) And at the end of the day I’m perfectly comfortable shipping code that’s a little bit agile, and a little bit not.
