Re: Agile Development, Anyone?

On 8/24/2011 5:46 PM, Sam_L wrote:

Why do I ask?

I've been curious about it and it still seems to be around, despite some
very anti articles and a degree of skepticism. Aldon has moved to it
and has been sending me e-mail about it. And agile *kind of* fits our
current "no methodology" , no design documents, little documentation
approach.

Personally, the thought of paired programming astounds me--I don't think
quickly enough for that approach. And the concept of creating test
scripts first would be a hard sell. And I'm not sure that all projects
are suited to be implemented in little bits, especially interactive
applications.

So I wondered what other experience y'all had, so I can decide if I want
to invest money and time to read a book on the subject.

The goal isn't to reduce documentation, although that may happen.
The goal isn't to reduce design documents, although that may happen too.
The goal is to write better applications.

Agile isn't a particular process, it's more like a guiding philosophy as
opposed to a mechanical process which must be relentlessly followed or
doom will ensue.

I am a lifelong RPG programmer - 33 years and a bit - and I think that
the agile philosophies have much to offer me. My colleagues and
management don't necessarily share that view which constrains my ability
to adapt particular methodologies like pair programming. If I could
though, I'd definitely prefer a more agile group.

I highly recommend pretty much anything written by Alastair Cockburn
(said COE-bern). At my elbow this moment is 'Agile Software Development
The Cooperative Game' 2ed. It has been a tremendous source of ideas to
me personally. No, not every concept travels well into my world, but
Cockburn handles explaining the philosophy very well in my opinion.
It's not a cookbook - no tips like 'use MLLHZO and save 3 CPU cycles!'
It's a book that reminds me why I'm a programmer and some very good ways
to get better at it.
--buck