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Showing posts from February, 2008

Agile practices don't primarily solve problems

But they sure help detecting problems early. And that's extremely valuable. For instance, iterative development with deliveries early in the project will test the technical feasibility and the development speed. But perhaps most important, we will get feedback on the functionality from the clients, to verify if we have understood their problem correctly. Failing in any of these areas will lead to project failure. And it is better to discover this when 20% of the budget is used than when 90% of the budget is used. First, you reduce your losses. And even better, you have a fair chance of fixing the project and turning it into success. Many agile projects succeed not because they are more productive, but because they discover problems in early iteations and then reduce the requirements. Unit testing is another practice that makes you aware of problems early. This makes it cheaper to fix problems, but it also gives confidence, so you dear restructure code when necessary. Another agile

The Pessimistic Programmer

I decided to change the title of this blog to "The Pessimistic Programmer". Why? Am I a depressed person that thinks nothing will work? No, I am an optimist in life. Something good is going to happen today :-) But in programming, something will surely go wrong. I don't actually view this as pessimism, but as realism. I want to be prepared for the worst that can possibly happen. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. But my wife explained to me that pessimists always say that they are just being realistic. So, I might as well face it: I am a pessimist. I think a good programmer needs to be pessimistic; always thinking about what can go wrong and how to prevent it. I don't say that I am a good programmer myself. No, I make far too many mistakes for that. But I have learnt how to manage my mistakes with testing and double checking. Über-programmers can manage well without being pessimistic. They have total overview of the code and all consequences of changes. But I