Agile



  • Just came from a meeting.

    Our end users, from whom we get such detailed requirements as scribbles drawn on a napkin, decided that we should be more Agile, because "writing requirements is taking too much time, and too often, the end result is not what they had envisioned".

    In other words, we should get fewer requirements in order to produce better quality software with shorter delivery times.

    I pointed out to them that this isn't quite what Agile means. My boss backed me up. So did several other development managers. So did B+1, B+2 and B+3 (CTO).

    Nevertheless, we don't have the time to write out detailed (!) requirements.

    If you go to an architect and say: build me a house, the first question he's going to ask is: what style house? Ranch? Split level? Colonial? Stone castle? The fewer details you provide, the less likely you are to get what you want.

    Even still, you should know what we want!

    How? We don't have ESP! I, personally, can't read your mind (not sure that I'd want to with all that WTF in there).

    And downhill it went. All the development managers ganged up on them; the users lost that one, and we all had a good laugh in our team meeting, but my Spidey-sense tells me this ain't over.

     



  • How do you honestly expect to make good software— regardless of development style, regardless of how competent your users articulate their wishes— if you hate your users and your users hate you?



  • Articulating Requirements

    I have this hanging on my wall.



  • @snoofle said:

    Even still, you should know what we want!
     

    I'll let my mate Scott take over here:

     

    Ta, Scott.



  •  @dhromed said:

    How do you honestly expect to make good software— regardless of development style, regardless of how competent your users articulate their wishes— if you hate your users and your users hate you?

    I was just at that meeting on an FYI basis. All I did was ask a question. I don't hate them - yet.

     



  • @snoofle said:

    I was just at that meeting on an FYI basis. All I did was ask a question. I don't hate them - yet.
     

    It's cool, it just appeared as if there was this strong us vs them mentality and things got all West Side Story real fast.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    This seems like the sort of customer that really needs an agile process. Mostly because you won't get much useful from them until they have something that they can at least look at or, better yet, use. Of course, their expectations don't sound reasonable for any methodology, but a tighter loop with faster feedback is definitely the way to go.



  • @dhromed said:

    @snoofle said:

    I was just at that meeting on an FYI basis. All I did was ask a question. I don't hate them - yet.
     

    It's cool, it just appeared as if there was this strong us vs them mentality and things got all West Side Story real fast.

    I just got a mental image of the coolest planning meeting ever.



  • @boomzilla said:

    but a tighter loop around their neck is definitely the way to go.
    FTFM



  • @db2 said:

    @dhromed said:

    @snoofle said:

    I was just at that meeting on an FYI basis. All I did was ask a question. I don't hate them - yet.
     

    It's cool, it just appeared as if there was this strong us vs them mentality and things got all West Side Story real fast.

    I just got a mental image of the coolest planning meeting ever.

    Yep, me too. People snapping their fingers, dance numbers and some hot latin chics as well.



  • @Cassidy said:

    Is the (purported) hyphen in the second panel bugging anyone else?

     



  • No. We're sane.



  • @cconroy said:

    Is the (purported) hyphen in the second panel bugging anyone else?
     

    It makes me want to take lives.



  • @cconroy said:

    Is the (purported) hyphen in the second panel bugging anyone else?

    Something does seem off about it, like it doesn't fit quite right with the rest of the lettering.



  • @snoofle said:

    If you go to an architect and say: build me a house, the first question he's going to ask is: what style house? Ranch? Split level? Colonial? Stone castle? The fewer details you provide, the less likely you are to get what you want.

    But they wouldn't do that to an architech.  This only happens with technology.  Not just development but also with IT infrastructure.  I think it's a combination of two things - one enabling the other.  People don't understand the technology or why questions like "requirements" come up.  The people raising the questions are collectively poor communicators and won't stand their ground.  Either nerds that get talked into a corner or a salesperson that won't be on the hook for making it work.

    I have to say "no" to kludges these people want all the time.  They want to save money, and don't understand why I can't make system X work by performing cheap action Y.  I explain that cheap action Y is a kludge and I'm not going to be on the hook to support it.  They tell me I'm trying to sell them bullshit they don't need and tell me to go get fucked (or they think I'm incompetent).  Our sales staff is the technicians.  But I seem to be the only tech that will consistently dodge liability and avoid having to support complete fucking nonsense.  I don't get many "sales" but I'm sure my margins are higher because you don't have to no-charge my time because I promised I could making something kludgy work.

    We'll also deny service to unreasonable people, but I guess not every business has that luxury.  Just today, I had to tell someone I won't setup their printer like they want unless it's got a wired network connection.  I refused to attach it USB to a workstation and share it from that workstation for the rest of the office.  History shows I would get a ticket once a week every time that computer isn't running or its print spooler crashes or they hit the 10 connection limit.  History shows they will also refuse to pay their bill because every time it stops working they will claimthe problem was not fixed the last time.

    TL;DR:  Companies should stop servicing customers like this if they ever expect the bullshit to stop.  I mean, even McD's is only going to let you stand there and drool for so long before they kick you out if you don't order something.  And you also have to use their names for shit and clearly define your order.  At the counter.  So why should a software company be any different?



  • @dhromed said:

    @snoofle said:

    I was just at that meeting on an FYI basis. All I did was ask a question. I don't hate them - yet.
     

    It's cool, it just appeared as if there was this strong us vs them mentality and things got all West Side Story real fast.

     

    West Side Story, or The Warriors?

    "Userss... come out and play-ayy...." *clink* *clink* *clink*

     



  • @Zylon said:

    The Warriors
     

    I don't know what that is. :(



  • Don't tell them you have Spidey-sense! They might want you to use it to discern requirements!



  • @snoofle said:

    Just came from a meeting.

    Our end users, from whom we get such detailed requirements as scribbles drawn on a napkin, decided that we should be more Agile, because "writing requirements is taking too much time, and too often, the end result is not what they had envisioned".

    In other words, we should get fewer requirements in order to produce better quality software with shorter delivery times.

    I pointed out to them that this isn't quite what Agile means. My boss backed me up. So did several other development managers. So did B+1, B+2 and B+3 (CTO).

    Nevertheless, we don't have the time to write out detailed (!) requirements.

    If you go to an architect and say: build me a house, the first question he's going to ask is: what style house? Ranch? Split level? Colonial? Stone castle? The fewer details you provide, the less likely you are to get what you want.

    Even still, you should know what we want!

    How? We don't have ESP! I, personally, can't read your mind (not sure that I'd want to with all that WTF in there).

    And downhill it went. All the development managers ganged up on them; the users lost that one, and we all had a good laugh in our team meeting, but my Spidey-sense tells me this ain't over.

     

    Larry Tesler once said, "Agile development is like teenage sex. Everyone claims to be doing it, but less than 1% actually are."

    My boss once said, "Documentation is dead. In this agile world, you can't expect to wait for a requirements document to start development."



  • @dhromed said:

    if you hate your users and your users hate you?
    I thought that was the basis of all business.



  • @pauly said:

    Just today, I had to tell someone I won't setup their printer like they want unless it's got a wired network connection.  I refused to attach it USB to a workstation and share it from that workstation for the rest of the office.
    I'm in a team that supports eachother's clients. I recently had a call about a 2-person site that was set up with Wireless Internet Dongles and RSA tokens. One workstation had a local printer shared to the other.

    But they were not connected with a cable, nor through a switch (No switch was onsite).

    The connection went through encrypted RSA back to Head Office, then back again, just to run a print job. The connection there is not graceful, and the guys on site timed it at 5 minutes to print a 3 page document. God help them should they want to print a picture.

    The second WTF is how he shared the printer. Due to how RSA works, or how it's set up here (I'm not an expert with RSA), DNS will usually resolve a hostname to an old IP, which changes per login. I believe this may be because there are multiple entrys for the same hostname, but I'm not an expert in DNS either, so I'm not sure. Anywho, he worked around this hiccup by mapping via IP address... Which as I just explained, changes every login. But hey, it worked when he set it up.

    When I asked why can't they swap the printer between PC's as was needed, his face drew blank.


  • @OhNoDevelopment said:

    "... you can't expect to wait for a requirements document to start development."
     

    He's true on that regard, but plenty of time and money has been wasted by developers actually taking this approach: rushing to development without a clear idea of what is actually required. I can understand impatient devs not reading specs properly (and creating what they think is required, rather than what's actually needed) but for someone in business to give the go-ahead and expecting success without a clear definition is pure folly.

    I'm half-tempted to waste effort developing something quite far removed from what they want then point out - in the absence of any documentation and real specifications - job done!



  •  Yknow, every time you mention B+1 and B+2, this is what I think of:

     B1-B2

    I'm sure that's not your intention.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @dhromed said:

    @Zylon said:

    The Warriors
     

    I don't know what that is. :(

     

    It's a movie from the 70s everyone quotes but no one has actually seen, because there was a game in the late 2000s based on it that everyone quotes but no one has actually played, because the commercial for the game used that quote.  Most people who still quote it probably haven't even seen the commercial, but saw someone else retweet a LOLCat that used the quote.

     



  •  Highly intriguing.



  • Who hasn't seen The Warriors? It's a classic. Everybody's seen The Warriors.

    Also, what game? There was a game based on it? News to me.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said:

    Who hasn't seen The Warriors? It's a classic. Everybody's seen The Warriors.

    Also, what game? There was a game based on it? News to me.

     

    [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Warriors_%28video_game%29"]In other news, Blakeyrat is completely unable to find information on the Internet[/url]

     



  • Fair enough, now:

    1) How does 2005 count as "the late 2000s"

    2) Why do you have a TV commercial for a game that came out in 2005 and literally nobody ever talked about again until this very moment constantly stuck in your head? And assume everybody else does, too? Statis chamber door got stuck for 7 years?



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    It's a movie from the 70s everyone quotes but no one has actually seen, because there was a game in the late 2000s based on it that everyone quotes but no one has actually played, because the commercial for the game used that quote.  Most people who still quote it probably haven't even seen the commercial, but saw someone else retweet a LOLCat that used the quote.
     

    The elephant in the room is that there never really was a movie or a game.  It's all just someone's art school project which got loose.

    People have created pages in imdb, wikipedia, encylopedia dramatica and other trusted sites to back up the myth of "The Warriors", and even circulated clips which they claim to be from it, but it just doesn't exist.  The Emperor has no Movie.

     

     


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said:

    Fair enough, now:

    1) How does 2005 count as "the late 2000s"

    2) Why do you have a TV commercial for a game that came out in 2005 and literally nobody ever talked about again until this very moment constantly stuck in your head? And assume everybody else does, too? Statis chamber door got stuck for 7 years?

     

    1) Mid 2000s. Close enough

    2) The commercial prominently used the "warriooors.... come out and plaaaaaaaay" line.  It became a meme. It's stuck around as they're oft to do, repeated by people without knowing the source, meaning, etc. Obviously not everyone knows it. It was used in this thread. Dhromed didn't know it, so I defined it, pointing out that the use of the meme is so far removed from its source, and that just about anyone who uses the meme isn't familiar with the source (or any part of the chain of sources).  Much in the same way people will shout "release the Krakken", but haven't even seen the movie its from. Nor should they. It's a bad movie.

    3) You complained about my definition. And that brings us to here.

    4) I'm only adding extra points

    5) So that I can beat another forum meme

    G) to death!

     



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    It became a meme.
     

    I know all memes. Therefore you're wrong.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Much in the same way people will shout "release the Krakken", but haven't even seen the movie its from. Nor should they. It's a bad movie.

    But a fantastically bad one.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @dhromed said:

    @Lorne Kates said:

    It became a meme.
     

    [b]I know all memes. Therefore you're wrong. [/b]

     

    I declare this a new meme.

     

     


  • Considered Harmful

    @dhromed said:

    I know all memes. Therefore you're wrongYour argument is invalid.

    MTFY



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    The commercial prominently used the "warriooors.... come out and plaaaaaaaay" line. It became a meme.

    It was a meme long before 2005, or even the Internet.

    @Lorne Kates said:

    Dhromed didn't know it, so I defined it, pointing out that the use of the meme is so far removed from its source, and that just about anyone who uses the meme isn't familiar with the source (or any part of the chain of sources).

    Yeah but I still say you're wrong. Everybody's seen The Warriors. It was a stable on "saturday movie special" and cable TV for like 20 years.

    @Lorne Kates said:

    Much in the same way people will shout "release the Krakken", but haven't even seen the movie its from. Nor should they. It's a bad movie.

    Whaaa? That movie's awesome. It has Bubo. Bubo!!!


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said:

    Yeah but I still say you're wrong. Everybody's seen The Warriors.
     

    I haven't, therefore you're wrong. So there, overly-strict interpretation of "everyone".

    Though you do realize that there's an increasingly large number of people who are near adult age, who weren't even born in the 1970s, right? The number of people who follow an entertainment meme versus the number of people who have actually experience the media are vastly different. How many people have actually seen Scarface vs. those who should "my little friend"?

    How many people do you think have actually seen an episode of Hello, Kitty?



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Though you do realize that there's an increasingly large number of people who are near adult age, who weren't even born in the 1970s, right?

    And that's relevant because RE-RUNS DO NOT EXIST IN TV! EVERYTHING IS SHOWN ONLY ONCE EVER! EVER!


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said:

    @Lorne Kates said:
    Though you do realize that there's an increasingly large number of people who are near adult age, who weren't even born in the 1970s, right?

    And that's relevant because RE-RUNS DO NOT EXIST IN TV! EVERYTHING IS SHOWN ONLY ONCE EVER! EVER!

     

    Ever been to an older relative's house, and they insist on playing one of their favorite shows/movies/whatever. It's a classic that you MUST see. But it's old. You can't identify with the culture, or the language, or the clothing styles, or some of the assumptions the characters make. The picture and sound quality isn't anything you're used to. It just looks and feels old and boring.

    It doesn't mean it's a bad movie. It just means that it's old, and there's a plethora of "newer" media that someone who is younger will chose, pick as their favorite, consider a classic, and be bitterly dissapointed when their own kids don't like it 30 years down the road.

    Take someone born in the late 90s. Give them the choice of one of (but only one of) The Warrors or The Hunger Games. Let me know how it goes.




  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Take someone born in the late 90s. Give them the choice of one of (but only one of) The Warrors or The Hunger Games. Let me know how it goes.


    Even better: do this to a bunch of people born in the late 90s. Take all the ones who picked the latter, and fight them to the death.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    Yeah but I still say you're wrong. Everybody's seen The Warriors.
     

    I haven't, therefore you're wrong. So there, overly-strict interpretation of "everyone".

    ...

     

     

    I was born in 1986 and have seen The Warriors, about 20 times. In fact it is one of the movies that both my dad and I have bonded over. It came out in 1979, so I would be willing to roll that into an 80s-ish movie.

    I never saw it one TV (what magical TV do you watch blakey? That stuff was hardcore...for...1979...I think?) but it is a classic.

     

    Snoofle you should dress like one of The Baseball Furies and wield the clue-bat on your customers.

     



  • @pkmnfrk said:

    @Lorne Kates said:

    Take someone born in the late 90s. Give them the choice of one of (but only one of) The Warrors or The Hunger Games. Let me know how it goes.


    Even better: do this to a bunch of people born in the late 90s. Take all the ones who picked the latter, and fight them to the death.

     

    The one I came up with was "who recorded the famous version of the song 'Deep Purple'?".

    If you're my grandparents' age, you say "Les Paul and Mary Ford".

    If you're my parents' age, you say "Nino Tempo and April Stevens".

    If you're my age, you say "Donny and Marie Osmond".

    I don't know what you youngsters would say, but I doubt it would be any of the above.

     

    (First time someone asked me for my opinion about the Hilton sisters, this is who I thought they meant.)

     



  • @da Doctah said:

    The one I came up with was "who recorded the famous version of the song 'Deep Purple'?".

    If you're my grandparents' age, you say "Les Paul and Mary Ford".

    If you're my parents' age, you say "Nino Tempo and April Stevens".

    If you're my age, you say "Donny and Marie Osmond".

    I don't know what you youngsters would say, but I doubt it would be any of the above.

    I would say "'Smoke on the water', and by the way, your question is stated wrongly".



  • @da Doctah said:

    The one I came up with was "who recorded the famous version of the song 'Deep Purple'?"

    No idea, I don't listen to modern music, I'm mostly a fan of classical music and opera.
    @da Doctah said:
    First time someone asked me for my opinion about the Hilton sisters

    No idea, but there is a Hilton hotel chain, maybe there is some relation but my guess is that they are worthless shit of a person because that is what gets the attention of the media in general



  • @da Doctah said:

    The one I came up with was "who recorded the famous version of the song 'Deep Purple'?".

    If you're my grandparents' age, you say "Les Paul and Mary Ford".

    If you're my parents' age, you say "Nino Tempo and April Stevens".

    If you're my age, you say "Donny and Marie Osmond".

    I don't know what you youngsters would say, but I doubt it would be any of the above.

     

    What? Deep Purple is a band.

     



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @dhromed said:
    @Zylon said:
    The Warriors
    I don't know what that is. :(
    It's a movie from the 70s everyone quotes but no one has actually seen, because there was a game in the late 2000s based on it that everyone quotes but no one has actually played, because the commercial for the game used that quote.  Most people who still quote it probably haven't even seen the commercial, but saw someone else retweet a LOLCat that used the quote.

     

    Well . . . yeah.    That's how the Internet works.

     



  • @da Doctah said:

    The one I came up with was "who recorded the famous version of the song 'Deep Purple'?".

    If you're my grandparents' age, you say "Les Paul and Mary Ford".

    If you're my parents' age, you say "Nino Tempo and April Stevens".

    If you're my age, you say "Donny and Marie Osmond".

    I don't know what you youngsters would say, but I doubt it would be any of the above.

    Deep Purple with Ian Gillan or David Coverdale?

     



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @dhromed said:

    @Zylon said:

    The Warriors
     

    I don't know what that is. :(

     

    It's a movie from the 70s everyone quotes but no one has actually seen, because there was a game in the late 2000s based on it that everyone quotes but no one has actually played, because the commercial for the game used that quote.  Most people who still quote it probably haven't even seen the commercial, but saw someone else retweet a LOLCat that used the quote.

     

    I've played that game.
    Spent 2 whole dollars on it.

    It's really, really awful. It feels Rockstar got the team that made GTA3 to try to remake it after causing them severe head trauma.

    90% of it was walking up to enemy gangs and repeatedly mashing the attack button, and the remaining 10% was mostly taken up with trying to tilt my head correctly for the shitty camera angle to make sense.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @_gaffer said:

    I've played that game.
    Spent 2 whole dollars on it.

    It's really, really awful. It feels Rockstar got the team that made GTA3 to try to remake it after causing them severe head trauma.

    90% of it was walking up to enemy gangs and repeatedly mashing the attack button, and the remaining 10% was mostly taken up with trying to tilt my head correctly for the shitty camera angle to make sense.

     

    And the constant goddamn spraypainting. Because if there's anything I hate more than doing things that require fine hand-motor control, is doing a simulation of them with a mouse. And anything I hate more than that, is doing it with an IBM-style nub. And I hate more than that, doing it with a touchpad. And I hate more than that, doing it with a janky analog stick to a weird camera angle while being attacked.

     And I hate more than that: doing it with a janky analog stick to a weird camera angle while my character is attacked.

     



  • @dhromed said:

    @da Doctah said:

    The one I came up with was "who recorded the famous version of the song 'Deep Purple'?".

    If you're my grandparents' age, you say "Les Paul and Mary Ford".

    If you're my parents' age, you say "Nino Tempo and April Stevens".

    If you're my age, you say "Donny and Marie Osmond".

    I don't know what you youngsters would say, but I doubt it would be any of the above.

     

    What? Deep Purple is a band.

     

    And a song.

    Just like "Death Cab For Cutie".

    And "Bad Company", but that's kind of a different situation.

     

    Q: Who recorded "I've Seen All Good People"?

    A: Yes.

    Q: Who recorded "I Can See For Miles"?

    A: Yes.

     



  • @Zylon said:

    @dhromed said:

    @snoofle said:

    I was just at that meeting on an FYI basis. All I did was ask a question. I don't hate them - yet.
     

    It's cool, it just appeared as if there was this strong us vs them mentality and things got all West Side Story real fast.

     

    West Side Story, or The Warriors?

    "Userss... come out and play-ayy...." *clink* *clink* *clink*

    Personally, I prefer Zardoz. Snoofle can be played by Sean Connery, the devs can be The barbarians, and the Users fly around in a stone skull that vomits guns. Only to have Snoofle hijack the stone skull and infiltrate their world and bring it down using his "Logic"

     


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