Agile development sucks ass

[Mike deVoid]

Seen on slashdot:

http://developers.slashdot.org/story...-for-lazy-devs

We recently got a copy of a new Voke analyst report on Agile, and the firm basically blasts the movement from top to bottom. Some highlights: 'The Agile movement is designed to sell services. ... Out of over 200 survey participants, we received only four detailed comments describing success with Agile.' 'Survey participants report that developers use the guise of Agile to avoid planning and to avoid creating documentation required for future maintenance. ... Be aware that the Agile movement might very well just be either a developer rebellion against unwanted tasks and schedules or just an opportunity to sell Agile services including certification and training.' So did the analysts just talk to the wrong 200 people?

So is this one of the reasons that CCP managed to fail to redevelop old shit for years and years.



(inb4 Barth wall'o'text)

[Mike deVoid]

No I haven't read the link yet - I'm going out tonight.

Cya nerds o/!

[Leboe]

In my experience with software and hardware devs, if you aren't AMAZING at time and expectation management, with agile its really easy to fall into the same loop CCP did of constantly non-delivery while pushing forward recklessly.

[TheManFromDelmonte]

So is this one of the reasons that CCP managed to fail to redevelop old shit for years and years.

More like they chose agile because they didn't want to redevelop old stuff.

[Mane Frehm]

Sadly there is no silver bullet for application development.

Agile is just another approach to try to mitigate the fundamental problem that you are always trying to build something that no one really understands or can describe/articulate well. Remember the classic response from clients..."its just what I asked for....its not what I want"

[Nu11u5]

So, has CCP restructured their development pipeline since Monoclegate?

[Jack bubu]

pretty sure CCP changed to SCRUM a while back or not?

[Loire]

pretty sure CCP changed to SCRUM a while back or not?

The changed from scrum to agile iirc.

[Daneel Trevize]

SCRUM is Agile, no?

[Ryuichi]

SCRUM is one agile methodology.

[DaDutchDude]

TL;DR: Software development in general sucks ass

When the Agile name is used by computer software firms to external clients as "sales pitch", the comments made by the excerpt you quoted makes sense. When using it for internal projects though, esp. onces that you will rely on for your income streams for the foreseeable future like CCP is, it makes much less sense sense, unless you assume they purposefully aim for their own foot and fire for the heck of it.

I wholeheartedly echo Mane Frehm's statement about lack of Silver Bullet though. Even though we have been developing computer software for ages, the process used for it is still very immature and a far cry from well established, stable, well managed or anything along those lines, and with it, software quality will largely be dependent on individuals rather then process. This isn't a result of Agile or any other process, but rather a result of quality being almost a non-concern in the software world to the point that failure is expected. The end reason for that is (as always) money: building _good_ software will always be more expensive and as long as customers / consumers accept that all software is crap or don't want to pay a lot more for better software, a business simply cannot afford to build better software.

I wouldn't be surprised if in the coming decade major incidents causing huge loss of life and/or property related to software failure will ultimately lead to legislation in major countries about how software should be built, only then for people to actually get serious about software quality and process control. Think about laws and regulations about food safety, aviation safety, building codes: any civilized country has those, why not force people to make good software either? As a result of this, there will be a lot less "custom" software and a lot more standardization of software, simply because the custom software will become too expensive. It won't happen in a year or perhaps even 10, but it will happen, seeing how dependent we are becoming on software.

How does that relate to software like EVE? I think it and software like it will probably be in a less regulated category, since it doesn't provide a vital service, but the changes in the entire software industry will have an effect on it as well.

[sand]

Yeah the adapted SCRUM - I know since their teacher for agile/scrum actually came to my company a few weeks later and was talking about the "mess" of CCP and how hopefully his instruction helped them.

[Loire]

Yeah the adapted SCRUM - I know since their teacher for agile/scrum actually came to my company a few weeks later and was talking about the "mess" of CCP and how hopefully his instruction helped them.

His name please.

[Mavolio]

Every project i did at university was done using the RAD methodology. It was great for getting stuff done but when ever i had a break from some work i would come back to it 2 weeks later and i had no idea why i had done any of it as documentation was too much effort

[elmicker]

Entirely unsurprised scrum (and agile in general) is a complete bag of dicks. I simply do not understand how development processes structured purely around time blocks, rather than completion of features, attaining objectives and meeting qualitative targets can function in the real world. You're supposed to be producing a product. If you assign two weeks to a feature and you're not finished after 2 weeks, you should spend another 2 weeks finishing it (and add a note for the future to allow more time), not throw it back on the pile to be finished by someone else.

[Amantus]

computers suck ass

[Sponk]

XP is termed a 'self-reinforcing system'.

aka 'house of cards'.

If you have a bunch of quality devs and a supportive business, you get a lot done because there's less bullshit.

If you don't, then you will crash and burn faster without the tedious checks and balances that are designed to prevent fuckups from escalating.

In that regard, agile is very much like Ruby and other languages of its ilk, compared to statically-typed verbose languages like Java. If you're good, it increases productivity. If you aren't, it impedes it.

IMO, a lot of the recent issues with XP is due to mainstream acceptance (with attendant mouth breathers) highlighting resiliency issues that self-selecting early adopters avoid because they're not terrible anyway.

The existence of Scrum is actually a telltale sign - a highly-performing team doesn't need the ceremony surrounding scrum; it has the proficiency to work out something better that works for them.

tldr; scrum is for teams full of bad people who aren't good enough to do agile properly without strict rules.

[RoemySchneider]

little-to-no point in discussing eve's code when 'game design' largely consists of adding new shiny stuff.

half a dude is forced to do some balance. no hope of any changes to the blapping formula. FW exploits make it into the game. someone made a terrible decision based on a terrible conclusion that stemmed from a terrible survey: a new inventory was created 'to reduce window clutter'. etcetcpp

team bff (and whoever it was that was helping them) have been doing a satisfying job though - credit where credit is due/not their fault/layoffandre.jpg/whatever

[Rakshasa The Cat]

Good coders code good code, bad coders code shit code, and fucktards comment on processes they don't understand.

[sand]

Yeah the adapted SCRUM - I know since their teacher for agile/scrum actually came to my company a few weeks later and was talking about the "mess" of CCP and how hopefully his instruction helped them.

His name please.

I'll look it up on Monday at work and let you know.