We've invented waterfall!



  • Via this hacker news listing, I present to you: Epicenter Consulting's fantastic new project management method:
    @Epicenter Consulting said:

    We've invented a development process that's completely unique in the industry. It puts people over technology - and business over code.

    The description itself is full of gems like
    @Epicenter Consulting said:

    You can't build a house without a blueprint. And you can't build software without a "domain model". This is the foundation on which your software will be built, including all software components and databases.

    Good luck modeling all those domains, guys.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Contact Us said:

    Ben Nadel


    Chief Software Engineer


    Ben Nadel is the driving force behind the software architecture and implementation of all Epicenter-designed systems—and our client projects couldn't be in better hands. Ben is one of the world's foremost ColdFusion experts and a sought-after speaker for global IT firms, user groups and conferences. His blog, on "obsessively thorough web application development," receives over 10,000 unique visitors daily and has established his reputation as a thought leader in jQuery and ColdFusion development.

    Emphasis added. The real question is if they're simply too ignorant to realize what they've done, or if it's just a way to con their customers.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @Contact Us said:

    Ben Nadel


    Chief Software Engineer


    Ben Nadel is the driving force behind the software architecture and implementation of all Epicenter-designed systems—and our client projects couldn't be in better hands. Ben is one of the world's foremost ColdFusion experts and a sought-after speaker for global IT firms, user groups and conferences. His blog, on "obsessively thorough web application development," receives over 10,000 unique visitors daily and has established his reputation as a thought leader in jQuery and ColdFusion development.

    Emphasis added. The real question is if they're simply too ignorant to realize what they've done, or if it's just a way to con their customers.

    I don't understand what your emphasis added quote is supposed to imply. My university uses a CMS built on ColdFusion, so I've been reading blogs, Tweets, and Google Pluses by people in the ColdFusion community. Ben Nadel has been involved in ColdFusion for a long time, and is a respected authority on current development methodologies using ColdFusion. This includes, among other things, object oriented design, MVC application development, use of ORM, creating server side web services to be consumed by client side JavaScript, and on and on. His site has high SEO value because he posts often and posts useful code snippets and examples.



  • I don't get the derision being heaped upon these guys.

    The process they describe is perfectly suitable for projects where the goal is to create an obsolete and useless end product, assuming it isn't cancelled before the 7-year project cycle is finished.

     



  • @Epicenter said:

    Unlike a traditional development process, ours establishes all the system's requirements before a line of code is written.

    Lies! Unpossibles! Disbelief! Jealousy!

    I like their style of pictures:

    Yay!! Look how happy they all are!



  • And OO methodologies promised complete re-usabilty. Some 15 years later the only re-usability achieved is the tolilet paper made from recycled UML design documents.

    This is even better. It guarantees that no working software will ever be delivered.



  • There are places where waterfall still works -- embedded systems, industrial control, certain layers of a security system -- but Web applications aren't one of them.



  • @Manos said:

    It guarantees that no working software will ever be delivered.
    Hey, you can't fail what you don't start.



  • Also, with no software, there won't be any bugs!



  •  But "Interface-Driven Architecture Method" is so much more hardcore-sounding. And, unlike "Waterfall" has a much more apropos acronym.



  • @Xyro said:

    @Epicenter said:
    Unlike a traditional development process, ours establishes all the system's requirements before a line of code is written.
    Lies! Unpossibles! Disbelief! Jealousy!

    I like their style of pictures:...

     

    "Hey, Geoff - you got the time?"

     



  •  From a Software Engineering standpoint this is great. I've actually done projects with this model and they come out just fine. I would also like to note that this process that they show isn't limited to the waterfall model, it could also be done with a spiral model, it all depends on what you focus on each time around. Personally I think these guys are going in a good dierection for building software.



  • @zeblian said:

    From a Software Engineering standpoint this is great. I've actually done projects with this model and they come out just fine. I would also like to note that this process that they show isn't limited to the waterfall model, it could also be done with a spiral model, it all depends on what you focus on each time around. Personally I think these guys are going in a good dierection for building software.

    Hm.

    Joined today. One post. Nothing but praise...

    Level with us, you wrote this, didn't you?

    Are you Hal Helms, or Clark Valberg?



  • @zeblian said:

    Personally I think these guys are going in a good dierection for building software.

    How can you be going in a different direction of your doing it the way it was done thirty years ago?



  • @Seahen said:

    There are places where waterfall still works -- embedded systems, industrial control, certain layers of a security system -- but Web applications aren't one of them.

     Not saying that "Waterfall will not work"..but properly applied, Agile methods work well in the embedded systems and industrial control fields also.



  • @fennec said:

    Via this hacker news listing, I present to you: Epicenter Consulting's fantastic new project management method: @Epicenter Consulting said:
    We've invented a development process that's completely unique in the industry. It puts people over technology - and business over code.

    The description itself is full of gems like
    @Epicenter Consulting said:

    You can't build a house without a blueprint. And you can't build software without a "domain model". This is the foundation on which your software will be built, including all software components and databases.

    Good luck modeling all those domains, guys.

    epicenter - (n.) At the heart of a disaster; the absolute worst place to be; the zone of maximum destruction; a place that the ground opens up and swallows.




  • Well then, I'll agree with zeblian.

    I've delivered software as a consultant coming into large corporate and government environments, and the approach described is spot on. There's a big difference between developing a shrink-wrapped desktop product, compared with constructing a system that has to tie into all their existing business and technical processes, hit a specific slot for their test environment, and work with another system still under development by another contractor.

    I understand and practice agile delivery in my current day job, but in my experience as a consultant, big customers have all sorts of dependencies and processes geared up to work with this approach, often with gate reviews at each stage of the process. These guys are after that kind of business, and they're avocating a process that works.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @asquithea said:

    Well then, I'll agree with zeblian.

    I've delivered software as a consultant coming into large corporate and government environments, and the approach described is spot on. There's a big difference between developing a shrink-wrapped desktop product, compared with constructing a system that has to tie into all their existing business and technical processes, hit a specific slot for their test environment, and work with another system still under development by another contractor.

    Indeed. But I'd think the waterfall method would work better for a shrink wrapped product than something customized for a customer's needs. Firstly, the customer doesn't really know what they want, or even what they actually do and need the software to do. Well, maybe for a simple store front or something this will work. But I got the impression that wasn't what these guys are doing.

    @asquithea said:

    I understand and practice agile delivery in my current day job, but in my experience as a consultant, big customers have all sorts of dependencies and processes geared up to work with this approach, often with gate reviews at each stage of the process. These guys are after that kind of business, and they're avocating a process that works.

    It's true that some large organizations don't understand why waterfall is bad. And maybe these guys have just done their best to put lipstick on a pig that their customers demand, but it's still possible to check all of those boxes in an agile way.



  • @Epicenter said:

    Unlike a traditional development process, ours establishes all the system's requirements before a line of code is written.
    Wait a second. Does this mean that waterfall development has become so outdated, that is has become some kind of forgotten "ancient technology" and agile has become the "traditional" mode of development?!

    That's kind of like it falling off the end of the FIFO queue and just being pushed back in at the top. History's running in circles like a dog chasing it's own tail.



  • When I was studying in University (Not so long back compared to others) they (Specifically, one young lecturer) took us through the waterfall, placed immense emphesis on it, told us how important it was in the "real world", composed half an exam on it, then admitted in the pub afterwards it was utter bollocks and a waste of time for a bunch of people likely to end up as web developers/burger flippers


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Thegoryone said:

    When I was studying in University (Not so long back compared to others) they (Specifically, one young lecturer) took us through the waterfall, placed immense emphesis on it, told us how important it was in the "real world", composed half an exam on it, then admitted in the pub afterwards it was utter bollocks and a waste of time for a bunch of people likely to end up as web developers/burger flippers

    I dunno...the waterfall process is not so bad, really, for making burgers.



  • @Anonymouse said:

    Wait a second. Does this mean that waterfall development has become so outdated, that is has become some kind of forgotten "ancient technology" and agile has become the "traditional" mode of development?!

    That's kind of like it falling off the end of the FIFO queue and just being pushed back in at the top. History's running in circles like a dog chasing it's own tail.

     

    So are you saying that we're stuck in a time paradox?  Does this mean someone will have to kill an earlier bversion of themselves? Causing the time loop itself to "break;"?

     


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Anonymouse said:

    Wait a second. Does this mean that waterfall development has become so outdated,
    that is has become some kind of forgotten "ancient technology" [....]
    Only if you don't allow Escher to intervene in at least part of it. Waterfall is nice if all you want is a garden ornament.



    If you want (usable/working/saleable/whatever) software out of it, some of the water needs to be recycled. Pretending to be Human Centipede for the process doesn't work.



  • @galgorah said:

    @Anonymouse said:

    Wait a second. Does this mean that waterfall development has become so outdated, that is has become some kind of forgotten "ancient technology" and agile has become the "traditional" mode of development?!

    That's kind of like it falling off the end of the FIFO queue and just being pushed back in at the top. History's running in circles like a dog chasing it's own tail.

     

    So are you saying that we're stuck in a time paradox?  Does this mean someone will have to kill an earlier bversion of themselves? Causing the time loop itself to "break;"?

    Obviously it's just a circular queue. So there's an off-by-one bug on the index that's gone unnoticed for years, that's hardly a worthy WTF around here.


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