Antagonism and Agile

In the linked blog article, "Uncle Bob" writes:

"The fear of ritualism is appropriate. In 1999, when Kent Beck and I decided to put our energies into the promotion of Extreme Programming, we feared that we could be starting a religion instead of a movement, and vowed to fight ritualism when it arose. This concern and vow was expressed again in the 2001 meeting that produced the Agile Manifesto.

But in the years since, ritualism has not been the problem."

And then,

"The adopters, in their enthusiasm, may claim that adoption is a new requirement of professionalism."

That is exactly the problem, and it is something "Uncle Bob", Fowler, et. al. continue to promote. While they may not have started a religion, there are a number of practices that touch on the pseudo-religious/spiritual and so are vulnerable to encouraging such zeal -- martial arts being one of them. Take a look around Mr. Martin's 8th Light site. Look at the design, the name, and the very notion of apprenticeship at the feet of the Masters. It clearly implies a "Way" (the One True Way, in fact) in the quasi-religious/spiritual sense of traditional martial arts. And we can extend the analogy that the purists of this Way are as in denial about what happens where the rubber meets the road as are traditional martial artists viewing MMA events. ;) This is a narrow, pre-packaged-for-sale mindset that is resistant to recognizing that it doesn't fully model the reality it claims to address and so relies on the zeal of its adherents to sustain itself.

The real truth is the self-annointed thought leaders have caused massive waste of brain cycles for developers worldwide exactly because their "adopters" insist that familiarity and reverence to the brain-droppings of the leaders of their chosen style *is* in fact a new requirement of professionalism. Take a visit to StackOverflow to see how many poor sods are banging their heads against a wall trying to bash their real-life projects into the shape of some design pattern or practice invented by these folks.

As Bruce Lee said, the truth is outside of all fixed styles. Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own. ;) Use your head, people, and feel free to consider and then reject anything the annointed gurus decree. Agile schmagile. Stop with the Extreme KoolAid.

2 points from this great article which probably kill true Agile in 'larger' companeis with old-school mentality:

1. "The whole company has to be agile, not just the engineering department."
2. "Most of the canned processes are designed to appeal to traditional phased-development mangers, because you can introduce them without disruptive cultural change."

Agile sh/w ould be very noisy. Larger companies often see noise as "people rocking the boat". Mgr: "Let's all settle down, people, before we capture the attention of my upper-level manager." :)

"No agile practice can succeed outside the context of an agile-friendly culture. Bob posits (and here we do disagree) that the practices themselves create that culture."

The discussion reminds me of the debates between the Nazarenes (early Christians) and the Pharasees (early Rabbinic Jews) over the primacy of Faith vs The Law.

Very much agreed. All the time I was reading Robert Martin's post I thought: practice only breeds some culture with some of the programmers.