Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
>> Vitaliy wrote
>>>Nigel Duckworth wrote:
>>>> Interesting page on how they manage code for the Space Shuttle;
>>>>
>>>> http://www.fastcompany.com/online/06/writestuff.html
>>>
>>>A great example of how NOT to develop software. Expensive, slow,
>>>inefficient.
>>
>> I wouldn't say it is how not to develop it.
>
> I don't think it's the methodology. There have been successful software
> projects before the Agile movement :)  Not every team is suited for every
> methodology.

True, but some methodologies, objectively speaking, are worse than others. 
There are many examples where documentation was taken to the extreme, and 
killed the project. Looking back, we had a couple of projects like that in 
the past (we refer to those as 'frozen', not 'dead'). The most successful 
projects (in terms of performance vs cost) were done when documentation was 
kept to a bare minimum.

> It's something else that makes the distinction. Somewhat similar to what
> makes an electronic design a good one :)

That's one of the points I made in my original post, which is the 
cornerstone of Agile: programming is about people. Good programmers can make 
a project successful *despite* a bad methodology, and conversely bad 
programmers can ruin a project even when the best available methodology is 
used.

Vitaliy 

-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist