The death of Agile

http://jroller.com/page/fate?entry=the_death_of_agile

It's a little disturbing seeing the agile crowd at work. In a relatively short period of time, an energetic group with potentially something new to offer has quickly sunk into a oft-derided group of greedy consultant used car salesman types.

I've spoken to a lot of people about this, I have yet to meet a single person who thinks agile, as sold by the agile crowd, is a good idea. I've ensured that everyone I spoke to had at least tried it, in some form or another. Pair programming, TDD, XP, little bits of paper, incremental releases, smug turdy devs, all experimented with and eventually discarded like a used tampon. Pair programming is inefficient and wasteful when compared to individuals who don't slack off, the little cards more often than not end up with the wrong things scribbled on them, the incremental updates result in a big badly thought out ball of mud with no coherence, and the tests end up testing the wrong thing more often than not.

Is it possible to fix all that? Sure, but agile isn't the way to do it, because the practices it espouses do not lend themselves to easy adoption. It's a high barrier that continues to punish, and never rewards its participants beyond that air of smugness and that perplexing 'I just shoved a big dildo up all my orifices and its strangely alluring' look.

The reason for this disillusionment isn't that hard to find. As many have noted, it's rooted in the feeling of incredible disappointment when you realise that no time has been saved, your love life has not improved, and your customers are no happier when you follow this crap.

Genuine techies don't react well to religion, usually. The agile crowd has committed the cardinal sin of stepping over the pragmatism line into the realm of faith. We're surrounded now by the debris and detritus of less than successful agile projects. Instead of questioning the agile practices that might have contributed to the failure, agilists will instead scream out that the flaw is in the implementation, not the principles. Whatever happened to the scientific method? Why are the principles now held to be sacrosanct?

It's that sort of attitude that makes normal people think that agilists are, on the whole, a bunch of greedy fuckheaded navelgazers more intent on group teenmasturbation than concern for fellow man. The irony of their very name is becoming apparent to all; there's nothing agile about their thought processes or acceptance of external input. Either you're with us, or you're not doing agile 'properly', and you can hire us or attend our seminars for the cheap price of a few thousand dollars.

Just say no to agile. Say yes to sane practices that work for your particular need. In the real world, it's not about doing either waterfall or agile, both are silly extremes that in practice never happen. The agilists initial point is well made, one should adapt and be prepared to think outside the box. Taking that advice in earnest involves discarding the modern day agilists and their newly discovered snake oil.