Saturday, January 19, 2008

Crystal Methodology by Chet Haase

I found this post by Chet Haase to be a highly amusing post - it's a great commentary on software development processes, and like a lot of good humour it makes you laugh more because a lot of it is true.

From the post:

Rapid Application Development helped move developers from the more stodgy development processes of earlier decades when people were dumber onto quicker models of development, based on fast prototyping work. Rabid Application Development takes this a step further. Instead of using prototypes as ideas to help with future, more stable work, the prototypes are the product, and are checked in as soon as they are complete, or in many cases, sooner. The key to Rabid Development is to keep the engineering team going at such a frenetic pace in coding and checking in code that nobody, including the client, ever realizes what a complete load of crap they've produced. This model is used throughout most university CS courses and has become the default process basis for all homework assignments. It is also the mainstay of software startups everywhere.