[SystemSafety] Putting Agile into a longer perspective

[WALTER, Dariusz]

Hi Olwen,

Would you care to share your ideas?

Best wishes,
Dariusz

From: systemsafety [mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of Olwen Morgan
Sent: Tuesday, 22 October 2019 5:29 AM
To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: [Warning - External] [SystemSafety] Putting Agile into a longer perspective

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Oh, dear. Why did this one crop up at a time when I felt like having a real rant at it ... ?

There are some very good things about Agile. The continuous integration devops processes that support it are extremely useful in critical systems development. But the demagogues of Agile are missing a critical matter in software technology. Agile practices ideally require means for developing software that are so powerful and efficient that if you've got the software wrong, it's still affordable to throw it away and start again. (Not an original thought - AFAI recall, Tony Hoare said something to similar effect back in the early 1980s.)

Agile will work only when we've made rigorous software development so streamlined that we can afford to throw incorrect systems away several times during the course of a project and yet still deliver within reasonable time and cost constraints.

Who is working to make such rigorous development cheap and efficient? ... I don't know of anyone who I think actually understands the essence of the problems enough to get going on a credible project. I've got some ideas on how one might make a start, but every time I speak to people about them, they appear to think I'm bonkers - and for all I know, maybe they're right.



plus ca change,

Olwen




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