The Twelve Commandments of Agile – Conclusion

The Agile Manifesto says:

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.

Thank you very much. Much obliged.

While their intentions are good, Agile Methodists’ methods simply do not sound appropriate to enterprise-class software development. 

The Agile Methodists are living in a world much simpler than the one I inhabit and from where I stand their methods seem corny to say the least:

The Grand Academy of Lagado, Gulliver's Travels

I was complaining of a small fit of the colic, upon which my conductor led me into a room where a great physician resided, who was famous for curing that disease, by contrary operations from the same instrument. He had a large pair of bellows, with a long slender muzzle of ivory: this he conveyed eight inches up the anus, and drawing in the wind, he affirmed he could make the guts as lank as a dried bladder. But when the disease was more stubborn and violent, he let in the muzzle while the bellows were full of wind, which he discharged into the body of the patient; then withdrew the instrument to replenish it, clapping his thumb strongly against the orifice of the fundament; and this being repeated three or four times, the adventitious wind would rush out, bringing the noxious along with it, (like water put into a pump), and the patient recovered. I saw him try both experiments upon a dog, but could not discern any effect from the former. After the latter the animal was ready to burst, and made so violent a discharge as was very offensive to me and my companion.

The dog died on the spot, and we left the doctor endeavouring to recover him, by the same operation.

- A Voyage to Laputa, Gulliver’s Travels, Part III, Chapter V, Jonathan Swift

While better ways of developing softwre are most welcome, these better ways are not going to be arrived at by over-simplifications of reality:

We next went to the school of languages, where three professors sat in consultation upon improving that of their own country. 

The first project was, to shorten discourse, by cutting polysyllables into one, and leaving out verbs and participles, because, in reality, all things imaginable are but nouns.

The other project was, a scheme for entirely abolishing all words whatsoever; and this was urged as a great advantage in point of health, as well as brevity. For it is plain, that every word we speak is, in some degree, a diminution of our lunge by corrosion, and, consequently, contributes to the shortening of our lives. An expedient was therefore offered, “that since words are only names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry about them such things as were necessary to express a particular business they are to discourse on.” And this invention would certainly have taken place, to the great ease as well as health of the subject, if the women, in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate, had not threatened to raise a rebellion unless they might be allowed the liberty to speak with their tongues, after the manner of their forefathers; such constant irreconcilable enemies to science are the common people.

- A Voyage to Laputa, Gulliver’s Travels, Part III, Chapter V, Jonathan Swift

A good way to improve agility is to automate the detail work involved in programming as was done by client/server development tools such as PowerBuilder. By speeding up the development processes, these tools tended to reduce project cycle time from requirements to production release.

The Internet complicated the landscape by pushing processing back to centralized servers (a la mainframes). Object oriented design methodology further complicated matters by introducing ideas such a separation of concern, MVC architecture and now service oriented architecture. The Model Driven Architecture guys have set off on  the right track by attempting the encapsulate these OO concepts in frameworks and tools in order to generate fully-functional systems from platform independent models. While I have my reservations on their approach [Model Driven Archietcture - Myth or Reality?], I have great respect for their daring.

As for Agile Methodists, the less said the better. Enough said.