Shamil Salakhetdinov
shamil at users.mns.ru
Thu Aug 18 10:45:54 CDT 2005
Dan, And I can't agree with Joel (and I usually admire most of his writing).... I can't agree just because he used the words "anathema" and "fanatics". When I hear such words I'm getting very suspicious... No, XP "fanatics" do not refuse completely upfront design and specs. They just say that any such designs and specs are a "subject to go nowehere" while the project evolves - therefore designs and specs should be just enough to not make severe design errors. They do use some upfront analysis and design but they do use and apply it differently... I'd better not talk here about all that - the books I referred are the best advocates for XP and related subjects. And the authors are very tolerant to other experience and techniques, in fact they base there methodology on all the best experience from IT projects developments of the last 50 years and on many other sources... This is mentality shift, and I think it's coming - as I noted VS.NET 2005 acquired a lot of XP ideas and the trend is to develop them even more in coming versions on VS.NET and MS Windows and MS Windows based middleware and MS SQL Server.... Of course the truth is somewhere in between, if such truth exists at all and I expect XP practioners are more close to this truth than BDUF advocates - I think many of your have seen big specification books, which were written by experts and which were paid big bucks to have been written but which were thownn away almost immediately after first prototype was written - I have seen that in a big software house in Germany, I did have such thick specs from them with a lot of well written text and even screenshots - in three months ater the project was started only the core idea of this project was true, most of the specs stuff was obsolete, even more - it was wrong and it didn't describe well real life customer's business. And the specs were written IN CLOSE CONTACT with the customer. I have seen/heard about many of such stories... Once again XP practioners don't refuse upfront analysis and design - they do it differently and they work in very close contact with the customer and they usually (always) have in their teams subject business area expert(s).... "The time will put all the dots on 'I' "... Shamil ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Waters" <dwaters at usinternet.com> To: "'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'" <accessd at databaseadvisors.com> Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2005 4:01 PM Subject: RE: [AccessD] OT(?): Big Design Up Front (BDUF) vs. XP any comments,ideas, experience? > I agree wholeheartedly with Joel. I developed a spec where instead of the > Quality Dept. initiating a record, it was initiated by the Purchasing Dept. > because they were the first group to become aware of the issue. I wouldn't > have known that without investigating and understanding up front what the > whole process was. The Purchasing Dept. agreed pretty quickly that they > could do this, particularly because having a software application to use > instead of paper forms made it easy. > > The Quality Dept. was initiating because everyone assumed that it was a > Quality process. That was departmental thinking - it's whole company > process thinking that really works. > > Dan Waters > > > -----Original Message----- > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Shamil > Salakhetdinov > Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2005 4:50 AM > To: !DBA-MAIN > Subject: [AccessD] OT(?): Big Design Up Front (BDUF) vs. XP any > comments,ideas, experience? > > Hi All, > > I've got this this today from JoelOnSoftware subscription list: > > <<<<<< > "As I worked through the screens that would be needed to allow > either party to initiate the process, I realized that Aardvark > would be just as useful, and radically simpler, if the helper > was required to start the whole process. Making this change in > the spec took an hour or two. If we had made this change in code, > it would have added weeks to the schedule. I can't tell you how > strongly I believe in Big Design Up Front, which the proponents > of Extreme Programming consider anathema. I have consistently > saved time and made better products by using BDUF and I'm proud > to use it, no matter what the XP fanatics claim. They're just > wrong on this point and I can't be any clearer than that." > > - From my latest article: > > The Project Aardvark Spec > http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/AardvarkSpec.html > >>>>> > No comments. > > It happened that I'm currently reading: > > "Microsoft Object Thinking" > by David West > ISBN:0735619654 > Microsoft Press C 2004 > > and > > "Extreme Programming Adventures in C# " > by Ron Jeffries > ISBN:0735619492 > Microsoft Press C 2004 > > These two books are from Microsoft Press and they have a lot of useful > information on eXterme Programming, Unit Testing and Classical(Behavioral) > vs. currently existing in most implementations "real life" UML-based(RUP) > OOD&P. > > When MS Press publishes books on such more computer-science than > used in real life projects subjects then they are very probably "cultivating > the ground" for the soon to become true "dreams". (I remember I watched a > movie "Microsoft, Year 2004"(form MS of course) somewhere in year 1995 or > so - and as I see now their by that time science-fiction is now real-life, > exactly in year 2004-2005. > > I must say I impressed with both books (and there are just a few technical > books I liked because most of them are just "chewing" MSDN or other docs > without almost any new ideas). > The more I read them the more I like them and I see a lot of sense in what > is written in them and I see a lot of my own ideas and experience are there > too. I'm glad my thinking is in the mainstream (of course what they say is > much more elaborated and thought through and based on their own rich > experience). > > So my guess/thinking is that XP, Unit Testing and Behavioral (Extreme) > OOD&P are becoming mainstream for real-life development of the projects of > any size - in fact as authors of these books state (based on their > experience) that the stuff they are writing about is the "only" agile way > to solve the challenges of nowadays customers and projects requests. And > they are not fanatics I think - they base their writing on deep analysis of > all the previous 50 years experience in software development and not only in > software - "Microsoft Object Thinking" is more philosophical than > technical book and it has quotes from Plato (year 400 B.C.) - these quotes > are used to explain how to "attack" complicated/vague projects' > requirements... > > > What do you think about the subject and related issues? > > Do we need Access/VBA Unit Testing added here - > http://opensourcetesting.org/unit_misc.php (Open source tools for software > testing professionals) - it can be done - does it make sense? > > Shamil > > -- > AccessD mailing list > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > -- > AccessD mailing list > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com