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Every good comes with a bad. Here's why agile software development won't solve all your problems. There's always a downside.
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On the basis that this isn't another oh-so-brilliant retrospective LOLZ post I would offer the following:
<quote>
1. Less Predictability
The more regimented, waterfall process makes it easy to quantify effort, time, and cost of delivering the final product.
It doesn't make it easy at all but it does make it compulsory. Note that a compulsory guess is still a guess and what happens in waterfall practice is that the estimate undergoes a magical transformation to becoming a deadline and as such is used to reward project managers and beat up developers. That never works out particularly well.
2. More Time and Commitment
Testers, customers, and developers must constantly interact with each other.
Yes - they must. The article seems to present this as a bad thing. Not to be overly flippant but walking slowly in the right direction is vastly preferable to running in the wrong direction.
3. Greater Demands on Developers and Clients
These principles require close collaboration and extensive user involvement. ...it demands a big commitment for the entirety of the project to ensure success.
Commitment is a good thing in business. "Fire-and-forget" management is to be found in almost any news story that contains the line "..decided to scrap the multi-million dollar project without realising any benefit..." or "..costs spiralled out of control.." Any project that consists of "These are my needs and here is some money. I'll expect to see the results in two years time" is (and has frequently been) a time bomb.
4. Lack of Necessary Documentation
Less documentation, certainly - but less "necessary" documentation? I'd prefer two sentences that were factually correct and were kept up to date with any changes to the project in place of two hundred binders of documentation that were neither.
5. Project Easily Falls Off Track
If it does this is not an Agile thing, it is a weak management thing...and Agile is more suited to a gated-delivery process which keeps projects on track than Waterfall is.
There are valid concerns with Agile but I think Agile is Dead • Pragmatic Dave Thomas - YouTube[^] is a better resource than this article.
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Not that I'd ever defend Agile, but like Duncan, let's take these one at a time:
- Less Predictability
Developers can rarely quantify the full extent of required efforts, because 1) there are so many details that have not been communicated 2) many (even small) efforts get only one side of the requirement story. The cliche "history is written by the victors" is also true of specs. Specs are written from the perspective of that user."
The more regimented, waterfall process makes it easy to quantify effort, time, and cost of delivering the final product.
And the more likely that what gets delivered isn't what is wanted because the development effort is a black box. Here's the spec, go away for 6 months or 6 years, come back with the product. It may meet the specs, but little else.
- More Time and Commitment
This is a joke. It's isn't more time and commitment, it's better time, making minor course corrections early on rather than expensive, time, $ and energy consuming, major course corrections later on. We don't just launch a satellite by pointing the rocket anywhere. And during the rocket's flight, it's flight path constantly undergoes minor corrections. Imagine the amount of fuel you'd have to hoist into orbit to fix the deviation after the fact.
- Greater Demands on Developers and Clients
Again, more conscious, up front, demands on communication and review means less demands on the lawyers later on to clean up the mess.
Clients must go through training to aid in product development. Any lack of client participation will impact software quality and success.
Deliver a product that the client has never seen, spec'd by someone that may not even have been the client, and yeah, you have an impact on quality and success.
- Lack of Necessary Documentation
Agreed -- the agile experiences I've participated in were poor on documentation. However, the non-agile experiences I've had were also poor on documentation, perhaps even more so.
- Project Easily Falls Off Track
Agile is not unique to this problem, and if done right, can better avoid it.
It also has the potential for scope creep, and an ever-changing product becomes an ever-lasting one.
Again, not unique to agile, but what becomes more apparent to everyone is the impact on upcoming sprints and overall due dates. It also lets the developer determine whether the scope creep can be handled by temporarily adding a person or two to the project or outsourcing the work, and still keep on track. Not unique to agile, but at least there's more conversation (from what I've seen) regarding scope creep.
This method is not beneficial when the client must work on a specified budget or schedule.
Ironically, that's when I've seen it work best (when it works) because the developers must come up with concrete tasks, sub-tasks, and estimate the sprints to complete those tasks. You very quickly discover, before any coding is done, whether you're within the budget and the schedule. Then again, doing it any differently, whether you call it agile or not, is ridiculous.
At the end of the day, whether you're using the waterfall myth or agile (which nobody that I've ever encountered actually knows how to do) the success of a project depends on communication, which depends on good people, not methodologies to compensate for bad people.
Marc
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Two of the world's biggest software companies face off in court this week for the second time, even though the most important issue of their dispute has already been resolved. Not being allowed to use Java? The HORROR!
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As stopping Java development didn't slow down the language/environment as required, Oracle now goes for the other option...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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The solution seems simple. Don't use Oracle, don't use Java. Yeah, Google might be screwed, but why doesn't it just rewrite Android using Go or something more modern than Java? 
Marc
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Strange, but I seem to recall reading a rumour that they're up to just that.
Great minds, etc. 
TTFN - Kent
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That gives me a strange sense of deja vu.
Remember when Sun sued MS re. Java, and MS went away and built .NET.
Guess that worked well for Sun.
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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Three email providers say their customers aren't at risk after the discovery of a hoard of login credentials. But if you can figure out which password goes with which account, you're golden!
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Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously.[^]
“The software is functioning as intended,” said Amber.
“Wait,” I asked, “so it’s supposed to delete my personal files from my internal hard drive without asking my permission?”
“Yes,” she replied.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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As long as they're shiny and trendy most people will still be ok with that, and pouring money in Apple products and support.
That's perfectly fine for me, it's one more opportunity for jobs (not the deceased one, the extinguishing ones).
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
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One of the main reasons why I hate Apple and why I'll never buy, use or recommend an Apple product. Even at it's worst, Microsoft was never this brazen or diabolical. I find this practice of Apple's criminal.Quote: Apple will be in control, bringing their 1984 commercial full circle into a tragic, oppressive irony.
We're already there.
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Indeed - me too. I've never understood how come Microsoft got hauled over the coals for embedding IE in Windows - and were forced to remove it - yet Apple get away with this kind of sh*t with barely a word said against them.
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt.
"If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
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Wombaticus wrote: I've never understood how come Microsoft got hauled over the coals for embedding IE in Windows - and were forced to remove it - yet Apple get away with this kind of sh*t with barely a word said against them.
It's all to do with market share. Practices, such as bundling, are deemed fine when you're either one of many participants in the market or a smaller participant among a few. They're deemed "anti-competitive" once you get to a "monopolistic" share, say 80+%.
In streaming services, Apple is a minor player right now. In mobile they're minor (in share) compared to Google, even though they're not minor in share of industry profits. They have about 90% of the profits or something. Hence why they have circa $200 billion in cash!
Kevin
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A counterpoint that manages to totally ignore some points already raised in the initial article, and that includes a number of comments where other users have experienced the same issue.
It's called victim blaming, and is something that I would expect from an Apple fangirl.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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How about Snopes?[^]
...or are you the type that just wants to believe every negative story about Apple?
That's what I do. I drink, and I know things. ~ Tyrion Lannister
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Next surprise, Apple Time Machine is integrated with Apple Music.
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Amber is a stripper name. It stripped you off your music. Now pay up.
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This relatively rare event, called a transit, happens on average only about 13 times per century. "I will stare into the sun until its light doesn't blind me"
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Quote: How to watch the rare transit of Mercury
Don't stop him now: he's having such a good time.
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
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I know you are all way to smart to look at the sun with a telescope - but just in case, here's a nice reminder[^].
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Some of us are smart enough to know how to look at the sun through a telescope[^] without cooking our eyeballs.
Sadly my Monday forecast is mostly clouds. 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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A certain patch prevents Windows 7 PCs with specific types of motherboards from booting. Totally a coincidence. Totally.
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